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THE 



PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE. 



T. S. BARRETT. 



THE 



PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE : 



A CONTRIBUTION THERETO, ON 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



BY 

T. a BAEEETT. 



Second Edition. 



LONDON: 

PROVOST & CO., 

36, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. 

1872. 



sf\\ 






Exchange 
XJniv of Mich. 

FEB 3 1921 



Betittauti 



TO 

ALEXANDER BAIN, 
GEORGE HENRY LEWES, 

"AND 

JOHN STUART MILL, 

WHOSE WRITINGS 

EMINENTLY 

HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO 

THE RIGHT METHOD 

FOR PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRIES. 



Vll 



PREFACE. 



These pages do not pretend to be 
more than a very small contribution 
to a most important subject. At first 
I had intended to write more in detail, 
and to follow the consequences of the 
subjective view of Causation into the 
regions of Theology and Ethics. But 
it was found that to do this would 
take up more time and thought than 
at present can be spared, and more- 
over would delay publication very 
considerably. Under these circum- 
stances it has been judged better to 



Vlll PREFACE. 

issue what already is in type, and 
thus give at once the fundamental 
principles of the theory. 

During the last few weeks the 
Archbishop of York, Dr. C. M. 
Ingleby, Mr. H. G. Atkinson, and 
Mr. Samuel Neil, have kindly com- 
municated with me on matters con- 
nected with this subject ; but, to my 
regret, the following sheets had all 
been printed, and the opportunity 
of making additions to Chapter II. 
was thereby lost. 

T. S. B. 

Grove Lane, 

Camberwell. 

June 26th, 1871. 



IX 



PKEFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



The first edition of these pages was 
entitled A New View of Causation. 
The reasons for choosing that title are 
given in the Introductory Chapter ; 
but, however suitable it might be for 
& first edition, it does not seem quite 
appropriate for a second. I have 
made a change accordingly. 

The only other alterations in this 
edition occur in the Introductory 
Chapter ; but they are too unim- 
portant for individual notice here. 
I regret that many pressing engage- 

a 3 



X PREFACE. 

ments, at the present time, prevent 
my making alterations in other parts 
of the volume that I should have 
wished made — to say nothing of 
addition. But the present issue has 
been decided on rather than that the 
essay should remain out of print. 

I ought perhaps to state (as I 
have, somewhat at length, examined 
arguments in that able and interest- 
ing work) that Mr. Lewes has, since 
the publication of the third edition of 
his History of Philosophy, worked 
out a new view of Causation. " But/' 
he writes, " I may say this much— 
that as regards your acute criticism 
of my old view I cordially accept it." 

T. S. B. 

21, Grace's Road, 

Camberwell, Surrey- 
March 13th, 1812. 



XI 



OF 

CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Syllabus ...... xiii 

Note ...... xxiii 

CHAP. 

I. Introduction i 

Appendix (Notes i. and ii.) . n 

II. Historical Epitome . . 23 

Appendix (Notes iii. to xv.) . 45 

III. The Problem Solved . .111 

Appendix (Notes xvi. to xxii.) 157 

Index ...... 181 



Xlll 



SYLLABUS OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



SECT. 

i. Apology for writing (p. 3). 

i. A list of the principal works 
read or consulted (13). 

2. Mr. Gillespie's Argument A priori 

rests on the popular idea of 
Cause (5). 

ii. Controversy with Mr. Gillespie 
(20). 

3. Same idea is shared by many 

thinkers (9). 



XIV SYLLABUS OF 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORICAL EPITOME. 

SECT. 

i. The subject of Causation makes 
its appearance in every modern 
work on philosophy (25). 

2. The commencement of the con- 

troversy (26). 

3. Was chiefly owing to Hume (28). 

Hi. § 1. Hume's predecessors (47). 

2. Barrow. 

3. Butler (48). 

4. and Hobbes. 

5. Mr. Lewes quotes Glan- 

vill (49). 
6 — 10. Extracts from Berkeley 

(50). 

11. An important difference 

however between Ber- 
keley and Hume (51). 

12. Passages from Locke. 



CONTENTS. XV 

SECT. 

4. Hume's theory stated (29). 

iv. § 1. A difference of opinion in 
some quarters concern- 
ing what Hume's theory 
really was (53). 
2. Owing to a variation be- 
tween the Essays and 
the Treatise of Human 
Nature. 
3 — 4. The variation described 

(54)- 
5 — 6. The Essays-theory (55). 

7. The Treatise-theory (57). 

8. The difference pointed out. 
9 — 10. Ignorance of the difference 

the cause of mistakes 
(58). 

5. The question is resolved into one 

of definition (33). 

v. Remarkable grouping of opi- 
nions on Causation (60). 

vi. Mr. Lewes's criticism of 
Hume's theory (61). 



XVI SYLLABUS OF 

SECT. 

6. The reply of Hume's opponents 

7. Dr. Whewell's opinion (36). 

8. Kant's view (37). 

xv. § 1. Extract from Chalybaus 
(107). 

2. Do. from Whewell(io8). 

3. Do. from Fleming (109). 

9. The opinions of Brown and 

Stewart (38). 

10. Mr. Lewes's reply to Hume (39). 

1 1. There are many other solutions of 

the problem. 

1 2. Mr. Mill's definition (40). 

vii. Extracts from Mill (73). 

13. Sir W. Hamilton's theory (40). 

viii. Extracts from Hamilton (75). 

14. Professor Bain's view (40). 

ix. Extracts from Bain (80). 

15. Baden Powell's opinion (41). 

x. Extract from Powell (82). 



CONTENTS. XV11 

SECT. 

1 6. Mr. Atkinson's view (41). 

xi. Extract from Atkinson (86). 
xii. Discussion on Law (87). 

17. The opinion of Brown, Comte, 

and Mr. Mansel (41). 

1 8 . The sentiments of Dugald Stewart, 

Malebranche, Berkeley, and 
Leibnitz (42). 

xiii. Extracts from Stewart and 
Berkeley (101). 

19. Conclusion. 

xiv. Synopsis of opinions. 
§ 1. What is Causation really? 
(103)- 

2. Is there any necessary con- 

nection between Causes and 
Effects ? (104). 

3. Is Causation universal? (105). 

4. How is the idea of Causation 

in natural events produced 
in us ? (106). 

5. Is the belief in the universality 

of Causation apodeictic ? 



XV111 SYLLABUS OF 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 
SECT. 

i . What is the use of the discussion ? 
("3). 
2, 3. Answered (114). 

The popular signification of the 
word c cause' (116). 

4. Dr. Johnson's definition. 

5. Is Hume's definition a better 

one ? 

6, 7. Mr. Mill's definition criticised 

8. Perhaps the idea of necessity- 

may solve the difficulty (119). 

9. Necessity a sine qua non of the 

causal notion (120). 



CONTENTS. XIX 

SECT. 

10. The idea of necessity is a de- 
velopment (121). 

xvi. Origin of belief in causes. 
Extract from Buckle (159). 

11. The primary idea of necessity. 

c Logical necessity' (122). 

xvii. The Law of Consistency: 
Extracts from Bain (163). 

xviii. Definitions of Necessity 
(165). 

12. Hume maintained that the idea 

of necessity was developed 
illogically (123). 

13. Hume's tenet a half-truth (124). 

14. Experience of invariability gives 

rise to the idea of necessity. 

15. Example. Gravitation (125). 

1 6. Inference. We know only Laws. 

xix. Extract from Hamilton (167). 



XV111 SYLLABUS OF 



CHAPTER III. 

THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 
SECT. 

i . What is the use of the discussion ? 

(113). 

2, 3. Answered (114). 

The popular signification of the 
word c cause' (116). 

4. Dr. Johnson's definition. 

5. Is Hume's definition a better 

one ? 

6, 7. Mr. Mill's definition criticised 
("7). 

8. Perhaps the idea of necessity- 

may solve the difficulty (119). 

9. Necessity a sine qua non of the 

causal notion (120). 



CONTENTS. XIX 

SECT. 

10. The idea of necessity is a de- 
velopment (121). 

xvi. Origin of belief in causes. 
Extract from Buckle (159). 

11. The primary idea of necessity. 

c Logical necessity' (122). 

xvii. The Law of Consistency : 
Extracts from Bain (163). 

xviii. Definitions of Necessity 
(165). 

12. Hume maintained that the idea 

of necessity was developed 
illogically (123). 

13. Hume's tenet a half-truth (124). 

14. Experience of invariability gives 

rise to the idea of necessity. 

15. Example. Gravitation (125). 

1 6 . Inference. We know only Laws . 

xix. Extract from Hamilton (167). 



XX SYLLABUS OF 

SECT. 

17. There is a widespread misunder- 

standing of the N ature of Law 

(127). 

xx. Meaning of Law (168). 
§ 1. Extract from Fleming. 

2. Do. Paley. 

3. Do. Hale (169). 

4, 5. Quotations from Mill. 

6. Extract from Berkeley (170). 
7, 8. Quotations from the Duke of 
Argyll (171). 

9. Extract from Bain (173). 

18. Law merely a name for gene- 

ralizations (128). 

19. Law does not involve necessity 

(129). 

20. There is, however, a necessity 

flowing from a Law. The 
necessity of implication. 

21. Or conditional necessity (130). 

22. This is the necessity we impute 

to phenomena (131). 



CONTENTS. XXI 

SECT. 

23. Comparison between the ideas of 

necessity in Logic and Induc- 
tive science (132). 

24. No other kind of necessity known 

to us than subjective necessity 

(133)- 

xxi. Gravitation (174). 

25. We must see what the idea of 

Causation should be, rather than 
what it popularly is (134). 

26. The idea of necessary connection 

arises from observation of uni- 
formity. 

27. The idea in its crudest form 

28. Example. Friction (136). 

29. Ditto. Expansion by heat. 

30. The reputed Cause alleged to 

be only part of the real cause 

(^37)- 



XXU SYLLABUS OF CONTENTS. 
SECT. 

31, 3 2. Employment of the term 
c conditions ' instead of the 
word c causes' (138). 
33. Analogy to Logic (140). 
34 — 36. The conditionality of the 
necessity (141). 
xxiL Extracts from Baden Powell 

(176). 

3 7—3 9. Process of Explanation ( 1 44) . 

40. Example from Baden Powell 

. (I47) - 

41, 42. Confusion caused by abstract 

terms (148). 
43, 44. The real nature of explanation 

exemplified in the case of 

Torricelli (150). 

45. Recapitulation (153). 

46. Corollary (154). 




XXlll 



NOTE. 

With regard to the question, i Must every 
event have a cause]' thinkers are divided 
into two great classes. Kant, Whewell and 
others of ' intuitive ' and ' idealistic ' pro- 
clivities, and Mr. W. H. Gillespie, say, ' Yes ; 
that every event has a cause is a necessary or 
apodeictic truth/ Hohhes, Buckle, Lewes, 
Mill and others, on the contrary, contend that 
it is not a certain truth, — that, those who 
believe that every event has a cause, get such 
belief as they obtain other generalisations from 
experience. 

In replying to the question, it seems to me 
that there are two paths open. One is, as is 
above hinted at, to institute an inquiry into 
the source of knowledge in general, and to see 
whether we have any knowledge independent 
of experience. The other way, made popular 
by David Hume — to inquire into what we 
mean by the term ' cause'— is the one pursued 
in the following pages. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

i. It was with no small amount of 
trepidation that I ventured to entitle 
the first edition ' A new view of 
causation.' I fully felt the risk I 
ran of being told that had I had a 
little more acquaintance with the 
writings of my predecessors and 
contemporaries I should not have 
prided myself on discovering what 
others had already promulgated. 
It is now some years since the view 

b 2 



4 CHAPTER I. 

of causation ventured in the third 
chapter of this essay first broke on 
me ; but in the meantime, when- 
ever the opportunity occurred, I 
searched the writings of metaphy- 
sicians and logicians for the develop- 
ment of a similar idea. But in no 
case did I find exactly the same 
notion. The nearest approach 
was in the Connection of Natural 
and Divine Truth, by the late Eev. 
Baden Powell; but on some im- 
portant points we shall be found to 
differ. It is true I cannot lay claim 
to a very extensive acquaintance 
with the works of philosophers; 
other occupations and circumstances 
have, to a great extent, precluded 
this.* But as I found that neither 
Mr. Mill nor Professor Bain, nor 

* See Note i. 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

apparently any one of the latest 
writers, made any allusion to such 
a theory, I inferred that until then it 
had never been suggested. In any 
case, however, the title I adopted 
may have been useful in attracting 
notice to what, if true, must be im- 
portant, and to what, if old, had seem- 
ingly fallen into unmerited oblivion. 
2. For many reasons the popular 
idea of causation needs a thorough 
examination. One is, that the most 
momentous questions are made to 
depend on it. The very existence 
of a Deity is, with some persons, 
made out almost entirely from their 
conception of causality. The 'Argu- 
ment a priori for the existence of a 
Great First Cause' by Mr. W. H. 
Gillespie* is a case in point. The 

# See advertisement at end of volume. 



6 CHAPTER I. 

a priori method in natural theology 
is to reason deductively and ab- 
stractedly from the notion of cause, 
keeping all design out of sight. Pro- 
fessor Newman has well said :* — 
' Injustice is done to the train of 
6 thought which suggests Design, 
' when it is represented as a search 
' after causes, until we come to a 
' First Cause and there stop. As an 
' argument, this, I confess, in itself, 
6 brings me no satisfaction. . . 
' A God uncaused and existing from 
1 eternity, is to the full as incom- 
' prehensible as a world uncaused 
' and existing from eternity. We 
' must not reject the latter theory, 
' merely as incomprehensible ; for 
' so is every other possible theory. 
' To believe in a divine architect, 



The Soul 7th edit. p. 27. 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

' because I cannot otherwise under- 
' stand by what train of causation 
' an eye could have been made, 
' is one thing ; but to believe in 
' a designer, because I see the eye 
'to be suited to light, is another 
' thing.' Now, this inference of the 
being of Deity, because it cannot 
otherwise be understood how things 
could exist, is the very pith of 
Mr. Gillespie's argument. Not a 
word about design — nothing but the 
theory of ' a God uncaused and exist- 
ing from eternity/ in order to avoid 
belief in ' a World uncaused and 
existing from eternity' — a process 
of explanation not a whit more 
satisfactory than the ancient one of 
the earth resting on an elephant. 
"lis true that Mr. Gillespie's argu- 
ment on this head is concerning the 
existence of Intelligence and not that 



5 CHAPTER I. 

of Matter ; but as far as the reason- 
ing is involved there is not much 
difference.* ' There is Intelligence in 
the universe/ argues Mr. Gillespie ; 
' and it must either have existed 
from eternity, or have begun to be. 
And if it began to be, it must have 
had a cause ; for, whatever begins to 
be must have a cause.' Now, Mr. 
Gillespie's work professes to rest 
entirely on apodeictic premisses, 
and to be as much a demonstra- 
tion as any in mathematics. Con- 
sequently, the postulate, whatever 
begins to be must have a cause (being 
a generalisation from contingent 



* Any one reading Mr. G.'s ' demonstration' for 
the first time, would see the similarity with diffi- 
culty, owing to a sophistical change of terms. The 
' demonstration ' starts with the thinker's own in- 
dividual intelligence ; but absolute intelligence is 
afterwards substituted for it. There are a few 
other points of difference, mention of which in 
this place is not necessary. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

experiences and therefore not a 
necessary truth), is out of place in 
an argument aspiring to be a demon- 
stration. This I pointed out to Mr. 
Gillespie ;* but I could not convince 
him that his postulate was not 
apodeictic. 

3. Now Mr. Gillespie's idea on 
the above point is shared by a large 
number of thinkers — especially per- 
haps by scientific men ; and it has 
seemed to me that the only effectual 
method of showing its error is to 
make a thorough inquiry into the 
nature of causation in general. 



* See Note ii. 



B 3 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTEE I. 



NOTES I. AND II. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTEE I. 
NOTE L 

(Referred to in § I.) 

A LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS 
WHICH HAYE BEEN READ OR 
CONSULTED. 

Argyll (Duke of), The Eeign of Law. 

Atkinson and Martineau, Letters on 
the Laws of Man's Nature and 
Development. 

Aristotle, Metaphysics. 

Abercrombie, Inquiries concerning 
the Intellectual Powers. 

An Essay upon the Eelation of Cause 
and Effect, controverting the Doc- 
trine of Mr. Hume. 1824. 

Antitheos, Eefutation of the Argu- 
ment a priori. 

Approximations to Truth ; [or] Na- 
turae Novum Organon. 



14 APPENDIX TO CHAP. I. 

Bacon, "Works. 

Bailey, Letters on the Philosophy 

of the Human Mind. 
Bain, Mental and Moral Science. 
Bain, Common Errors on the Mind. 

(Fort. Rev. 1868.) 
Bain, Logic. 
Baronius, Metaphysic. 
Bayle, Historical and Critical Dic- 
tionary. 
Beattie, Essay on Truth. 
Berkeley (Bishop), "Works of. 
Bledsoe, Theodicy. 
Bray, Philosophy of Necessity. 
Bray, Force, and its Correlates. 
Brougham, Life of Hume. [In the 

Lives of Men of Letters.] 
Brougham, Discourse of Natural 

Theology. 
Brown, Lectures. 
Brucker, History of Philosophy. 

(Abridged by Enfield.) 
Btichner, Force and Matter. 
Buckle, History of Civilisation. (In- 

trod. Vol.) 
The Future. Edited by Luke 

Burke. 
Butler, Works. 



NOTE I. 15 

Campbell, Dissertation on Miracles. 

Chalmers, Works. 

Chalybaus, Speculative Philosophy 
from Kant to Hegel. 

Christmas, The Cradle of the Twin 
Giants. 

Clarke, Demonstration of the Being 
and Attributes. 

Clarke, Correspondence with Butler, 
Leibnitz and others. 

Clarke, Remarks on Collins's Inquiry 
concerning Liberty. 

Collins, Philosophical Inquiry con- 
cerning Human Liberty. 

Colston, Basis of Moral Science. 

Combe, Belation between Science 
and Beligion. 

Comte, Cours de Philosophie Posi- 
tive. 

Copleston, Enquiry into the Doc- 
trines of Necessity, &c. 

Crombie, Essay on Philosophical 
Necessity. 

D'Holbach, Systeme de la Nature. 

Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the 
Philosophers. 

Edwards, Inquirv into Freedom of 
the Will. 



1 6 APPENDIX TO CHAP. I. 

Encyclopaedia Britannica : Articles 
' Cause ' and ' Metaphysics/ 

English Cyclopaedia : Article ' Cau- 
sation/ 

Foster, Essays on Natural Religion. 

Fowler, Mozley and Tyndall on 
Miracles. 

Gassendi, Discourses on Morals. 

Gillespie, The Necessary Existence 
of God. 

Godwin, Political Justice. 

Hamilton, Discussions. 

Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics. 

Hamilton, Dissertations on Reid. 

Hartley, Observations on Man. 

Hobbes, Works. 

Hume, Philosophical Works. 

Huxley, On the Physical Basis of 
Life. (Fort. Rev. 1869.) 

Huxley, Lay Sermons. 

Ingleby, Introduction to Metaphy- 
sics. 

Irons, Analysis of Human Respon- 
sibility. 

Janet, Materialism of the Present 
Day. 

Jackson, Defence of Human Liberty. 
1725. 



NOTE I. 17 

Kaimes, Principles of Morality and 

Natural Eeligion. 
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. 
Leibnitz, Correspondence with Dr. 

Clarke. 
Leland, Deistical Writers. 
Leslie, Dissertation on Mathematical 

and Physical Science. 
Lewes, History of Philosophy. 
Lewes, Physiology of Common Life. 
Lewes, Aristotle. 
Lewes, Comte's Philosophy of the 

Sciences. 
Locke, Works. 

Lowman, A priori Argument. 
Macdonald, The Principia and the 

Bible. 
McCosh, Intuitions of the Mind. 
McCosh, Examination of Mill's 

Philosophy. 
McCosh, Christianity and Positivism. 
Malebranche, Search after Truth. 
Mansel, Limits of Eeligious Thought. 
Mansel, The Philosophy of the Con- 
ditioned. 
Martineau (James), ' Is there any 

axiom of Causality ? ' 
Masson, Eecent British Philosophy. 



1 8 APPENDIX TO CHAP. I. 

Maurice, Moral and Metaphysical 
Philosophy. 

Miall, Bases of Belief. 

Mill, System of Logic. 

Mill, Examination of Sir W. Hamil- 
ton's Philosophy. 

Mill, Dissertations and Discussions. 

Mill, On Comte and Positivism. 

Morrell, Modern Philosophy. 

Newman, The Soul. 

Nomos. 

Notes on Beligious, Moral and Meta- 
physical Subjects. Aberdeen. 1828. 

Oswald, Appeal to Common Sense. 

Paley, Works. 

Parker (Theodore), Theism, Atheism 
and the Popular Theology. 

Pearson, On Infidelity. 

Plato, Works. 

Play fair, Dissertation on Mathe- 
matical and Physical Science. 

Powell, The Connection of Natural 
and Divine Truth. 

Powell, The Unity of Worlds. 

Powell, The Order of Nature. 

Price, Be view. 

Priestley, Disquisitions relating to 
Matter and Spirit. 



NOTE I. 



l 9 



Priestley, Examination of Keid, 

Beattie and Oswald. 
Priestley, Letters to a Philosophical 

Unbeliever. 
Eagg, Creation's Testimony. 
Keid, Works. Edited by Sir W. 

Hamilton. 
Eussell, ' On the Absolute/ — Content. 

Rev., July, 1870. 
Scott, Inquiry into the Nature of 

Causation. 18 10. 
Smith, Gravenhurst. 
Stewart, Dissertation on Metaphy- 
sical Science. 
Stewart, Philosophy of the Human 

Mind. 
Stirling, Secret of Hegel. 
Tappan on the Will. 
Taylor, Man Eesponsible. 
Tennemann, History of Philosophy. 
Thomson, Outlines of the Laws of 

Thought. 
Travis, Moral Freedom reconciled 

with Causation. 
Tucker, Freewill, Foreknowledge 

and Fate. 
Tyndall, Mountaineering in 1861. 
Tyndall, Fragments of Science. 



20 APPENDIX TO CHAP. I. 

Tyndall, The Constitution of the 
Universe. (Fort. Bev., Dec. 1865.) 

Verity, Subject and Object. 

Voltaire, Works. 

Whately, Elements of Logic. 

Whewell, History of Scientific Ideas. 

Whewell, Novum Organum Reno- 
vatum. 

Whewell, Philosophy of Discovery. 



NOTE II. 

(Referred to in § 2.) 



i. Mr. Gillespie's words are 
these : — 

' For intelligence either began to 
' be, or it never began to be. 

' That it never began to be, is 
' evident in this, that if it began to 
' be, it must have a cause ; for, what- 
6 ever begins to be must have a cause. 
' And the cause of Intelligence must 
' be of Intelligence ; for, what is not 
' of Intelligence cannot make Intelli- 
i gence begin to be,' &c. &c. — Div. ii., 
part i. 



NOTE II. 2 1 

2. On this I remarked : — 

' And this Mr. Gillespie calls a 

• demonstration ! Why, the two 
' sentences which he has italicised 
' are very far from being necessarily 

• true. On the former of them, es- 
1 peeially, volumes of controversy 
1 have been written ; and Mr. Gil- 

• lespie simply takes it for granted ! ' 
— Exam, of Gillespie, p. 13. 

3. Mr. Gillespie's rejoinder is 
couched in the following words : — 

1 Concerning this axiom'' T. S. B. 

• declares it is very far from being 

• necessarily true. Again, . . 

; volumes of controversy have been 
' written upon it. says T. S. B. ; 
k while the truth is, the axiom in 
•' question was at no time the sub- 

• ject of controversy at all. Not a 
' single volume, not a single page T, 
1 not a single line ! T, was ever 
1 written on the topic. The axiom 
1 is so indubitable that no one ever 

* ' Whatever begins to be ruust Lave a 
cause.' 



22 APPENDIX TO CHAP. I. 

' thought of calling it in question. 
' Not even the greatest sceptic did 
' so, and T. S. B. is challenged to 
' name the author who ever at- 
' tempted to throw doubt upon the 
' axiomatic character of the position 
'in hand/ — National Reformer, 
Oct. 10, 1869. 

4. Mr. Gillespie's challenge is one 
that can be very easily accepted ; 
and, since he will be satisfied with 
the name of one author who declines 
to accept his 'axiom' as a necessary 
truth, I need do no more than men- 
tion the name of Mr. Lewes.* 



* See Biog. Hist, of Phil., Chap, on Kant's 
Fund. Principles. — Knight's Pocket Edition, 
1846, vol. iv. p. 131 ^Library Edition, 1857, 
P-558- 



GHAPTEE II. 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 



CHAPTER II. 

HISTORICAL EPITOME. 

v 

i. ' There are/ wrote David 
Hume,* 'no ideas which occur in 
6 metaphysics more obscure and 
1 uncertain than those of power, 
1 force, energy, or necessary connec- 
1 tion ; of which it is every moment 
1 necessary for us to treat in all our 
' disquisitions/ If this was true 
then, how much more true is it 



* An Inquiry concerning Human Under- 
standing, sect. vii. 



l6 CHAPTER II. 

now ! Since Hume put forth to the 
world his own peculiar views on the 
subject, the topic has been perpe- 
tually in a state of controversy and 
unsettlement. It is one of the 
principal vexatce qucestiones of modern 
metaphysics, and makes its appear- 
ance, now in a treatise of logic, and 
now in a work on practical science. 
There is no ignoring it. Every r 
writer on philosophy is obliged to 
mention it ; and if he does not put 
forward an original view of his own, 
he is forced to follow in the foot- 
steps of some predecessor. Eeid, 
Beattie, Brown, Stewart, Whewell, 
Hamilton, Mill, Bain, Lewes, Baden 
Powell, and others too numerous to 
mention, have treated of the question 
and taken sides. 

2. We need not stop to inquire 
whether Hume or Glanviil or 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 27 

Hobbes or Malebranclie was the 
first thinker on the subject. It 
may roughly be considered that the 
controversy has more or less oc- 
cupied the minds of thinkers since 
the revival of letters and the rise of 
positive science, i.e. since the time 
of Bacon and Hobbes. A coinci- 
dence may here be mentioned en 
passant, namely, that the commence- 
ment of the controversy on Caus- 
ation is contemporaneous with that 
of the question, Philosophical Neces- 
sity v. Freewill. The Schoolmen 
and the Ancients had debated on 
both Causation and Necessity, but 
for all that they cannot be classed 
with moderns in these discussions. 
Their mode of thought is essentially 
at variance with ours. They talk of 
fate and chance ; but of what use are 
their thoughts on these ideas to 

c 2 



28 CHAPTER II. 

modern necessitarians ? None what- 
ever. They argued too on causes ; 
but of very little use are their argu- 
ments to us. In short, we can no 
more class the Schoolmen and the 
Ancients with ourselves, when speak- 
ing of these things, than we can class 
Astrologers with Astronomers, or 
Alchymists with Chemists. We 
have in fact to begin entirely afresh. 
And to be more particular, we have 
to commence with Hume. 

3. Hobbes, Glanvill, Malebranche, 
and others, had, no doubt, to a cer- 
tain extent, preceded Hume;* but 
it is the last-named writer to whom 
we are indebted for general attention 
being drawn to the subject; and 
" Hume's Theory of Causation " is 
the name by which certain pro- 



* See Note iii. 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 29 

positions are now known. Whether 
they occurred to him spontaneously, 
or whether they were suggested to 
him by the writings of the aforesaid 
philosophers, is not ascertained; but 
one fact is certain, and that is, that 
it was to Hume's publication of the 
ideas in as paradoxical and startling 
a form as possible that drew atten- 
tion to them. 

4. What is known as Hume's 
Theory, says Mr. Lewes, # ' may 
1 be thus briefly stated. All our 
' experience of causation is simply 
' that of a constant succession. An 
' antecedent followed by a sequent 
' — one event followed by another : 
1 this is all that we experience. 
' We attribute indeed to the ante- 
' cedent a power of producing or 



* History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 317. 



JO. CHAPTER II. 

' causing the sequent ; but we can 
' have no experience of such power. 
' If we believe that the fire which 
' has burned us will burn us again, 
' we believe this from habit or 
' custom ; not from having per- 
' ceived any power in the fire. We 
' believe the future will resemble 
' the past, because custom has 
' taught us to rely upon such a 
4 resemblance. ""When we look about 
'us towards external objects, and 
' consider the operation of causes, 
' we are never able in a single 
' instance to discover any power or 
' necessary connection— any quality 
i which binds the effect to the cause, 
' and renders the one an infallible 
' consequence to the other. We 
' only find that the one does actually 
'in fact follow the other. The 
' impulse of one billiard-ball is 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 3 I 

1 attended with motion in the second. 
' This is the whole that appears to 
' the outward senses. The mind 
' feels no sentiment or inward im- 
' pression from this succession of 
' objects; consequently there is not, 
' in any single instance of cause 
' and effect, anything which can 
' suggest the idea of power or neces- 
' sary connection."* This is the 
' whole of his theory. His expla- 
' nation of our belief in power, or 
' necessary connection, is that it is 
' a matter of habit. t . . . 

' This theory of causation has 
' been hotly debated. . . . 

' When Hume asserts that expe- 
' rience gives no intimation of any 
' connection between two events, but 
' only of their invariable conjunction 



* Hume : Inquiry, sect. vii. 
f See Note iv. 



J 2 CHAPTER II. 

' — when he says that the mind 
J cannot perceive a causal nexus, but 
c only an invariableness of ante- 
' cedence and sequence, he is con- 
' tradicted, or seems to be, by 
' the consciousness of his readers. 
' They declare that, over and above 
i the fact of sequence, there is 
1 always an intimation of power 
' given in every causation, and 
' this it is which distinguishes 
' causal from casual sequence — 
' connection from mere conjunc- 
' tion. The fire burns paper be- 
' cause there is some power in the 
' fire to effect this change. Mere 
6 antecedence, even if invariable, 
' cannot be sufficient, or else day 
' would be the cause of night, the 
' flash of lightning would be the 
* cause of the thunder-peal. Swal- 
( lows fly close to the earth some 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 33 

6 little while before the rain falls, but 
' no one supposes the flight of the 
' swallows causes the fall of the 
' rain. In every case of causation 
' there must be an element of 
' power — a capacity of producing 
' the observed change — a nexus of 
6 some kind, over and above the 
' mere juxtaposition of bodies. If 
' diamond will cut glass, it has a 
' power to do so ; the sharpest 
1 knife is without this power. 
' So reason Hume's antagonists.' 
5. The question at this point re- 
solves itself into one of definition. 
What do we mean by the terms 
causation, causing, cause ? Keid, 
Beattie, Kant, and Mr. Lewes* 
maintain that by causing we mean 
producing. To this, however, Hume 



* See Notes v. and vi. 

c 3 



34 CHAPTER II. 

has an answer ready. ' Should any 
' one pretend to define a cause by 
' saying it is something productive 
' of another, 'tis evident he would 
' say nothing. For what does he 
' mean by production ? Can he give 
' any definition of it that will not 
' be the same with that of causation? 
■ If he can, I desire it may be pro- 
' duced. If he cannot, he here runs 
' in a circle, and gives a synonymous 
6 term instead of a definition.' And 
again, — ' I begin with observing that 
' the terms of efficacy, agency, power, 
' force, energy, necessity, connexion, 
6 and productive quality, are all nearly 
' synonymous ; and therefore 'tis 
1 an absurdity to employ any of 
' them in defining the rest.'* And 
in accordance with this Hume 



* Treatise of Human Nature, b. i. part iii. 
sect. 2 ; and sect. 14. 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 35 

eliminates from his definition every 
synonymous term, and maintains 
that by a cause of a phenomenon, 
we merely mean an event which 
is invariably followed by the phe- 
nomenon. 

6. This is again denied by Hume's 
opponents. They return to their 
former position, that by causation 
we mean something more than mere 
invariable succession. Eeid and 
Beattie confess themselves unable 
to refute their antagonist in a philo- 
sophical manner, and take refuge 
in common sense, declaring that 
Hume's arguments are sophistical 
and to be placed by the side of 
Berkeley's, which ' admit of no 
answer and produce no convic- 
tion.'* These writers were the 



# Hume : Essays, vol. ii. note x. 



36 CHAPTER II. 

first antagonists of Hume, and they 
were, at the same time, the most 
thorough-going in their opposition 
of all dissentients. They maintained 
that his definition was incomplete ; 
and that over and above the fact of 
invariable sequence, there is power 
in every cause to produce its effects. 
They combated the idea that we 
have no grounds for believing in 
necessary connection. They could 
not deny that they perceived nothing 
of such a connection ; but they at- 
tributed their supposed knowledge 
thereof to intuition. 

7. Dr. "Whewell seems to agree 
mainly with Eeid and Beattie on 
this subject. The following extract 
from his Philosophy of the Inductive 
Sciences is, I think, confirmatory of 
it : — ' David Hume asserted, that 
6 we are incapable of seeing in any 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 37 

' of the appearances which the 
' world presents anything of neces- 
' sary connection ; and hence he 
' inferred that our knowledge can- 
' not extend to any such connection. 
' . . . We assent to his remark as 
' to the fact, but we differ from him 
' altogether in the consequence to 
' be drawn from it. Our inference 
* from Hume's observation is, not 
' the truth of his conclusion, but 
' the falsehood of his premises ; — 
' not that, therefore, we can know 
' nothing of natural connection, but 
' that, therefore, we have some 
' other source of knowledge than 
' experience/* 

8. Kant opposes Hume on grounds 
not materially different from those 
of Reid, Beattie, and Whewell. They 



* Hist, of Scient. Ideas, vol. i. b. i. 
ch. vi. art. 1. 



38 CHAPTER II. 

admit with Kant the facts of per- 
ception in the case ; and agree with 
him that, nevertheless, there is a 
necessary connection between causes 
and effects ; and agree with him, 
also, that this supposed knowledge 
is not derived from experience but 
from another source. His difference 
from them is, in the main, one of 
terminology." 

9. Brown and Stewart come 
nearer to Hume's doctrine. They go 
so far as even to admit the soundness 
of his definition ; but they contend 
that, on the other hand, we have an 
intuitive belief in the universality of 
causation. This compromise, how- 
ever, is untenable. If by cause 
we mean nothing but a certain suc- 
cession of events, 'what/ asks Dr. 



* See Note xv. 



HISTOKICAL EPITOME. 39 

Whewell, ' is the meaning of the 
' maxim . . . that every event must 
' have a cause ? Let us put this 
' maxim into the language of the 
' explanation, and it becomes this : 
' Every event must have a certain 
' other event invariably preceding 
6 it ' # — a proposition relatively un- 
important. 

10. Mr. Lewes' s reply to Hume 
I have quoted at length in the 
Appendix. t 

1 1 . The above may be considered 
as a very meagre statement of the 
controversy between the two schools 
the most opposed to each other. 
But there are several other solutions 
of the problem, which may be re- 
garded as intermediate, and more or 



* Hist, of Sclent. Ideas, b. iii. cli. ii. art. 4. 
f See Note vi. 



40 CHAPTER II. 

less at variance with either extreme. 
For example : — 

12. Mr. Mill recognises as just 
the criticism of those who contend 
that were causation simply sequence 
then day would be cause of night 
and night of day ; and has accord- 
ingly modified Hume's definition 
by the introduction of the word 
' unconditional. ' Causation is with 
him unconditional invariable succes- 
sion.* 

13. Sir William Hamilton re- 
solves causation into a corollary 
from the indestructibility and per- 
manence of matter.t 

14. Professor Bain adopts Mr. 
Mill's definition, and at the same 
time gives a rendering of the relation 
not unlike Sir William Hamilton's. 



* See Note vii. f See Note viii. 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 4 1 

The conservation of force is closely 
allied, in his opinion, with the modus 
operandi of causation.* 

15. The late Professor Powell 
divided causes into two distinct 
classes. Volition he called a moral 
cause; and all others, physical causes. 
Moral causes he viewed as Eeid and 
Beattie regarded all causes indis- 
criminately, namely, as efficient and 
bound by a necessary connection to 
their effects.! Physical causes, on 
the other hand, he considered in 
accordance with Hume's theory. 

16. Mr. Atkinson protests against 
the separation of causes into two 
classes ;\ but at the same time 
seems to regard all causes as equally 
efficient^ 

1 7 . Brown, Comte, and apparently 



* See Note ix. f See Note x. 

J See Note xi. § See Note xii. 



42 CHAPTER II. 

Mr. Mansel,* do not dispute the 
assertion that all we perceive is se- 
quence ; but they regard the ques- 
tion, what causation really is, as one 
transcending the limits of human 
knowledge. 

1 8. DUGALD STEWART,t MALE- 

branche, and Berkeley, are of 
opinion, that the connection between 
causes and effects is arbitrary, and 
depending entirely on the will of the 
Deity. In some places, Leibnitz 
seems to entertain the same view ; 
in others he appears to argue as if 
there were a per se connection. 

19. The above rapid survey of 
the controversy shows the great 
differences of opinion that exist on 
the subject, J and the need there is 
of a disentanglement of the whole 



* See Note v. f See Note xiii. 

J See Note xi^. 



HISTORICAL EPITOME. 43 

question, if it can be performed. In 
the next chapter is stated what I 
conceive to be the true solution of 
the problem. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. 



NOTES III. TO XV. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. 

NOTE III. 

(Referred to in § 3.) 

HUME'S PREDECESSORS. 

1 . In Note C to his ' Elements 
of the Philosophy of the Human 
Mind,' Stewart gives the following 
extracts from Dr. Barrow, Butler, 
and Hobbes : — 

2. ' If we except the mutual caus- 
' ality and dependence of the terms 
\ of a mathematical demonstration, 
' I do not think that there is any 
' other causality in the nature of 
' things, wherein a necessary conse- 
' quence can be founded. Logicians 
' do indeed boast of I do not know 



48 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' what kind of demonstrations from 
' external causes either efficient or 
' final, but without being able to 
' shew one genuine example of any 
' such ; nay, I imagine it is impos- 
' sible for them so to do. For there 
' can be no such connection of an 
' external efficient cause with its 
' effect through which, strictly speak- 
* ing, the effect is necessarily sup- 
6 posed by the supposition of the 
' efficient cause, or any determinate 
' cause by the supposition of the 
' effect. . . . Therefore there can 
' be no argumentation from an effi- 
' cient cause to the effect, or from 
6 an effect to the cause which is 
' lawfully necessary.' — Barrow : 
Mathematical Lectures. 

3. ' It is in general no more than 
' effects that the most knowing are 
6 acquainted with : for as to causes 
' they are as entirely in the dark as 
' the most ignorant.' — Butler : 
Sermons. 

4. ' What we call experience is 
' nothing else but remembrance of 



NOTE III. 49 

' what antecedents have been fol- 
' lowed by what consequents. . . . 
' No man can have in his mind a 
1 conception of the future ; for the 
1 future is not yet ; but of our con- 
1 ceptions of the past we make a 
' future, or rather call past, future 
' relatively. . . . When a man hath 
6 so often observed like antecedents 
1 to be followed by like consequents, 
' that whensoever he seeth the ante- 
' cedent, he looketh again for the 
' consequent, or when he seeth the 
' consequent, maketh account there 
' hath been the like antecedents, 
' then he calleth both the antece- 
' dent and the consequent signs of 
' one another.' — Hobbes : Tripos. 

5. Mr. Lewes* gives the follow- 
ing extract from Glanvill's ' Scepsis 
Scientifica ' : — 

' All knowledge of causes is de- 
' ductive ; for we know of none by 
1 simple intuition, but through the 
' mediation of their effects. So that 



Hist, of Phil, vol. ii. p. 317. 



$0 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' we cannot conclude anything to be 
' the cause of another but from its 
' continually accompanying it ; for 
' the causality itself is insensible.' 

6. Berkeley, also, approaches very 
near to Hume. Notice the following 
passages : — 

7. ' The principles whereof a 
' thing is compounded, the instru- 
' ment used in its production, and 
' the end for which it was intended, 
' are all in vulgar use termed causes, 
' though none of them be strictly 
' speaking agent or efficient. There 
' is not any proof that an extended 
' corporeal or mechanical cause doth 
' really and properly act, even mo- 
' tion itself being in truth a passion.' 
—Siris, § 155. 

8. ' Certainly, if the explaining 
' a phenomenon be to assign its 
' proper efficient and final cause, it 
6 should seem the mechanical philo- 
' sophers never explained anything.' 
— lb. § 231. 

9. ' We are not therefore seriously 
' to suppose with certain mechanical 



NOTE III. 51 

' philosophers, that the minute par- 
' tides of bodies have real forces or 
' powers by which they act on each 
' other, to produce the various phee- 
1 nomena in nature.' — lb. § 235. 

10. ' The mechanical philosopher 
' inquires properly concerning the 
' rules and modes of operation alone, 
' and not concerning the cause, for- 
' asmuch as nothing mechanical is 
6 or really can be a cause.' — lb. 

§ 2 49- 

11. Notwithstanding the above 
extracts in which Berkeley seems to 
side with Hume, the agreement be- 
tween these two thinkers does not 
extend much further; for Berkeley 
affirms that there is efficient causa- 
tion somewhere, though not in 
phenomena themselves. To wit, in 
the will of the Deity. 

1 2. Locke, also (Ave must not omit 
to mention), has a few sentences in 
his Essay, bearing a remarkable 
similarity, in some respects, to 
Hume's doctrine. ' In the com- 
6 munication of motion by impulse,' 

d 2 



52 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

he says, ' wherein as much motion 
' is lost to one body as is got to the 
* other, which is the ordinariest case, 
•' we can have no other conception 
' but of the passing of motion out 
' of one body into another ; which, 
' I think, is as obscure and uncon- 
' ceivable, as how our minds move 
' or stop our bodies by thought ; 
' which we every moment find they 
' do. The increase of motion by 
' impulse, which is observed or be- 
' lievecl sometimes to happen, is yet 
' harder to be understood. We have 
' by daily experience clear evidence 
' of motion produced both by im- 
' pulse and by thought : but the 
' manner how, hardly comes within 
c our comprehension ; we are equally 
' at a loss in both. ,# But Locke's 
views coincide with Hume's only a 
little way : for in the same paragraph 
we find the following Berkeleian sen- 
timent : — ' Pure spirit, viz. God, is 
' only active ; pure matter is only 
' passive.' 



* Essay con. Hum. TJnd n b. ii. ch. 23, § 28. 



NOTE IV. 53 

NOTE IV. 

(Referred to in § 4.) 
HUME'S THEORY. 

1 . There prevails in some quarters 
a curious difference of opinion con- 
cerning what Hume's view really 
was. This disagreement is owing, 
in a great measure, to the fact, very 
often forgotten, that during his life- 
time Hume put forth two separate 
theories, which do not coincide in 
all points. The first was publishe'd 
in the ' Treatise of Human Nature ' ; 
the last in the ' Inquiry concerning 
Human Understanding/ in the se- 
cond volume of the ' Essays and 
Treatises/ 

2. This variation between the two 
editions, so to speak, of Hume's 
doctrine, has naturally led to con- 
fusion. His earliest opponents — 
Beattie particularly — quoted exclu- 
sively from the ' Treatise ' ; and 
modern writers, when they take 



54 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

their opinions of Hume second- 
hand, do the same. Modern writers, 
on the other hand, who go to Hume 
direct, generally quote from the 
' Essays' — the ' Treatise' being more 
difficult to procure. 

3. It was the theory as developed 
in the ' Treatise/ which drew so 
much attention to the subject, be- 
ing written (evidently for that pur- 
pose) in as paradoxical and startling 
a manner as possible. Thus on 
reaching the acme of his theory, 
Hume says : — ' I am sensible, that 
' of all the paradoxes, which I have 
' had, or shall hereafter have occa- 
' sion to advance in the course of 
' this Treatise, the present one is 
' the most violent.''" But in the 
' Inquiry ' he takes an opposite 
tone, and goes to the other extreme 
of making his theory as mild as 
possible. He seems here afraid of 
saying anything to excite opposition; 
and, just when his conclusions are 
expected, he abruptly ends the es- 



* Treatise, b. i. part iii. sect. 14. 



NOTE IV. 55 

say with : — ' I am afraid, that should 
' I multiply words about it, or throw 
' it into a greater variety of lights, 
' it would only become more obscure 
1 and intricate. ' # 

4. It will be rightly gathered from 
the above that the difference between 
the two theories lies in the Treatise- 
doctrine being larger than, and in- 
cluding, the Essays-doctrine. In 
fact, the earlier work includes all 
the reasonings and conclusions of 
the later edition, with the addition 
of certain final inferences. It will 
therefore be best to exhibit first the 
theory as propounded in the ' In- 
quiry/ and then add the final 
inferences which were drawn in 
the ' Treatise.' 

5. The Essays-theory, then, is as 
follows : — ' All that w r e mean when 
' we ascribe to one substance a sus- 
' ceptibility of being affected by 
' another substance, is that a cer- 
' tain change will uniformly take 
6 place in it when that other is pre- 



* Inquiry, sect. vii. part ii. 



56 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

6 sent;— all that we mean, in like 
' manner, when we ascribe to one 
' substance a power of affecting 
' another substance, is, that, where 
' it is present, a certain change will 
' uniformly take place in that other 
V substance. Power, in short, is 
' significant not of anything dif- 
6 ferent from the [invariable] ante- 
' cedent itself, but of the mere 
' invariableness of the order of its 
' appearance in reference to some 
' invariable consequent, — the [in- 
' variable] antecedent being deno- 
' minated a cause ; the invariable 
' consequent an effect.'"" 

6. The above extract is from Dr. 
Brown, and pithily expresses the 
doctrine in Hume's ' Inquiry,' if we 
omit the word ' invariable ' in the 
two places I have indicated by 
brackets. Hume defined an effect 
as an invariable consequent, but 
not cause as an invariable antece- 
dent. As Professor Bain points out, 
a severe blow on the head always 



* Brown : Phil, of Hum. Mind, Lect. vi. 



NOTE IV. 57 

causes death ; but death is not 
always caused by a blow on the 
head.* 

7. The doctrine in the ' Treatise ' 
embraces the above interpretation 
of causation, with the addition of 
the following conclusion : — ' The. 
' efficacy or energy of causes is 
1 neither placed in the causes them- 
' selves, nor in the Deity, nor in the 
6 concurrence of these two princi- 
' pies ; but belongs entirely to the 
1 soul, which considers the union of 
' two or more objects in all past 
' instances. 'Tis here that the real 
6 power of causes is placed, along 
' with their connexion and neces- 
' sity.'f 

8. Thus, in the ' Treatise ' and in 
the ' Inquiry ' Hume equally asserts 
that all we know of causation is se- 
quence. But in the former he adds 
that there is no such thing as caus- 
ation beyond the subjective idea, 
wiiilst in the latter he altogether 
omits such an inference, leaving the 



* Logic, b. iii. chap. iv. art. 2. 
f Treatise, b. i. part iii. sect. 14. 

d3 



5 8 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

per se or objective nature of causation 
as a topic on which he does not 
venture to dogmatise. In other 
words, he does not deny, in the 
' Inquiry,' the possibility of a ne- 
cessary connection ; he merely says 
we have no grounds for believing in 
it. There is a distinct difference 
between this doubt, and the denial 
of the ' Treatise ' ; the same differ- 
ence that there is between the dis- 
missal of a case for want of sufficient 
evidence on either side, and the ver- 
dict — ' Not-Guilty ; and the Accused 
leaves the Court without the slight- 
est stain on his character.' 

9. This difference between Hume's 
two views has, there can be no doubt, 
caused most of the difference of opi- 
nion which has prevailed concern- 
ing the merits of his doctrine. As 
might have been expected, his most 
vehement opponents (Beattie, e.g.) 
generally quote from the ' Treatise ' ; 
whilst those who see nothing par- 
ticularly extraordinary in his views, 
make reference to the ' Essays.' 

10. The following extract from 
Lord Brougham's Life of Hume, is 



NOTE IV. 59 

true, if reference is to the ' Treatise,' 
but untrue, if it refers to the ' In- 
quiry ' : — 

ii. ' That we only know the con- 
' nection between events by their 
' succession one to another in point 
' of time, and that what we term 
6 causation, the relation of cause and 
' effect, is really only the constant 
' precedence'" of one event, act, or 
' thing to another, is now admitted 
' by all reasoners ; and we owe to 
' Mr. Hume the discovery, it may 
' be well called, of this important 
* truth. But he will not stop here :t 
' he must deny that there can be 
' such a thing as one act, or event, 
' or thing, causing another : he must 
' hold that there can be no such 
' thing as causation, no such thing 
' as power ; he must discard from 
■ our belief those ideas which all 
' men in all ages, have held so clis- 
' tinctly, and so universally, as to 
' have given them names, specific 



* The same mistake as Brown's. See ante, § 6. 
f In the ' Essays J he does stop there. 



60 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' appellations in all languages. He 
' denies all connection, all influence, 
' all power, and holds it impossible 
' that any such things should be — 
' that any rational meaning should 
' belong to such words.'* 



NOTE V. 

(Referred to in §§ 5 and 17.) 

A curious circumstance is con- 
nected with the controversy on cau- 
sality, viz. the remarkable grouping 
of opinions. Those thinkers who 
generally are poles asunder, are 
hand-in-hand upon this subject ; 
and those who on other topics are 
associated, are here opposed. We 
shall constantly find this manifested 
throughout the present inquiry. 



* Brougham: Men of Letters, 3rd ed. p. 172. 



NOTE VI. 6 I 

NOTE VI. 

(Referred to in §§ 5 and 10.) 
ME. LEWES ON HUME. 

1. After the statement of the 
theory which I have quoted in § 4, 
Mr. Lewes proceeds : — 

2. ' So reason Hume's antago- 
' nists. Nor do I think they are 
* finally answered by resolving the 
' idea of power into mere invariable - 
' ness of antecedent and sequent ; 
' for they may reply that the in- 
' variableness itself is deduced from 
' the idea of power : we believe the 
6 fire will invariably burn the paper 
' because it has the power to do so, 
' because there is a real nexus be- 
' tween fire and the combustion of 
1 paper ; only on such a belief can 
' our expectation of the future re- 
' sembling the past be securely 
' founded. 

3. ' The ordinary belief of man- 
' kind in the existence of something 



62 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' more than mere antecedence and 
' consequence is therefore a fact. 
' This fact Hume and others admit. 
' Because they cannot perceive the 
' power, they declare that we have 
' no right to believe in it. Hume 
' insists upon the impossibility of 
' our perceiving power — of our per- 
' ceiving any necessary connection 
1 between two events. But, say 
* those who oppose this theory, — 
' Although we cannot perceive the 
' power, we are forced to believe in 
' it ; and this belief is not a matter 
' of custom, but is given in the very 
' facts of consciousness. We per- 
1 ceive that some power is at work 
' producing effects ; the precise na- 
' tare of this power, indeed, we 
' cannot perceive, because we never 
6 can know things per se. . . . 

4. ' As it is a fact that all men 
' believe in some power involved in 
' every causal act' [I think Mr. Lewes 
is mistaken here. Hume, in his 
' Treatise/ maintained the opposite 
of such a belief. — T. S. B.], ' we have 
' to ask, Is that belief well founded ? 

5. ' Two schools at once present 



NOTE VI. 63 

' themselves. The one (that of 
1 Hume) declares that the belief has 
' no good grounds ; it is a matter of 
' custom. If I believe the sun will 
1 rise to-morrow, it is because it has 
* always risen If I believe that fire 
' will burn in future, it is because it 
' has always burned. From habit I 
1 expect the future will resemble the 
' past : I have no proof of it. 

6. ' The other school declares 
' that this belief in causation is an 
' intuitive conviction that the future 
' will resemble the past.' [Dr. Bain, 
though scarcely belonging to this 
school, says what practically amounts 
to much the same thing. ' The 
uniformity of nature ' is, with him, 
a First Principle, admitting of no 
analysis.-— T. S. B.] < This is the 
' language of Beid and Stewart. 
1 Dr. Whewell would have us admit 
' the belief as a fundamental idea — 
' a necessary truth independent of 
' and superior to all experience. 

7. ' Both explanations are ques- 



* Bain: Logic, b. ii. ch. v. art. 11 ; and 
append. D. 



64 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

( tionable. Custom or habit can 
' essentially have nothing whatever 
' to do with it, because our belief is 
' as strong from a single instance as 
' from a thousand.' [But is it? I 
think this may be questioned. — 
T. S. B.] '"When many uniform 
' instances appear/' says Hume, 
6 " and the same object is always 
' followed by the same event, we 
' then begin to entertain the notion 
' of cause and connection. We 
■ then feel a new sentiment, to- 
' wit, a customary connection in 
' the thought between one object 
' and its usual attendant : and this 
' sentiment is the original of that 
' idea which we seek for." This 
' is manifestly wrong. A single 
' instance of one billiard-ball moving 
' another suffices to originate the 
' "sentiment," without further repe- 
' tition.' [But the first instance of 
one billiard-ball moving another, 
which any one witnesses, is not the 
first case he has noticed of one ob- 
ject moving another. Mr. Lewes's 
objection cannot hold ground unless 
he can prove that the very first in- 



NOTE VI. 65 

stance of one object moving another, 
noticed by an infant, immediately 
suggests causation or power to its 
mind. — T. S. B.] 'Nor is there more 
truth in the assertion that the 
belief depends on conviction of the 
future resembling the past ; this 
explanation assumes that the gene- 
ral idea precedes the particular 
idea. When we believe that simi- 
lar effects will follow whenever the 
same causes are in operation — 
when we believe that fire will burn, 
or that the sun will rise to-morrow 
— we are simply believing in our 
experience, and nothing more. We 
cannot help believing in our ex- 
perience : that is irresistible : but 
in this belief, the idea of either 
past or future does not enter. I 
do not believe that fire will burn 
because I believe that the future 
will resemble the past ; but simply 
because my experience of fire is 
that it burns — that it has the 
power to burn. Take a simple 
illustration, trivial, if you will, but 
illustrative : — A child is presented 
with a bit of sugar : the sugar is 



66 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

white, of a certain shape, and is 
solid ; his experience of the sugar 
is confined to these properties : he 
puts it in his mouth ; it is sweet, 
pleasant : his experience is ex- 
tended ; the sugar he now believes 
(knows) to be sweet and pleasant, 
as well as white and solid. Thus 
far experience is not transcended. 
Some days later, another piece of 
sugar is given him. Is it now 
necessary for him to have any in- 
tuitive conviction that the future 
will resemble the past — any fun- 
damental idea independent of expe- 
rience — to make him believe that 
if he puts the sugar in his mouth 
it will taste sweet ? Not in the 
least : he believes it is sweet, be- 
cause he knows it is sweet — be- 
cause his experience of sugar is 
that it is sweet. By no effort could 
he divest himself of the idea of its 
sweetness, because sweetness forms 
an integral part of his idea of the 
sugar.' [I agree with Mr. Lewes 
that when the child receives the 
second piece of sugar, it is not 
necessary for him to have any ' in- 



NOTE VI. 67 

tuitive '* conviction that the future 
will resemble the past, to make him 
believe that if he puts the sugar in 
his mouth it will taste sweet. But 
I think it is necessary for him to 
have a i fundamental idea/ depen- 
dent not solely on experience, namely, 
the idea, or impression, or habit of 
thinking, or faith (call it what you 
will) that nature is uniform as far 
as our mundane affairs are con- 
cerned. The child cannot possibly 
knoiv that the second lump will be 
sweet like the first. He believes it 
will be, for many reasons. First; 
— he sees that it is taken from the 
bason from which the former piece 
was taken, and concludes that it is 
the same sort of substance as the 
former. Secondly ; — hitherto his 
experience of things which he puts 
in his mouth, is that the taste is 
always the same, e.g. a piece of 
bread does not taste differently at 
different times, but always the same. 
Therefore he concludes that the 



* Meaning by c intuitive,' in this place, — 
1 independent of all experience.' 



68 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

sugar will again taste sweet ; but 
he does not know that it will. A 
child seeing a chameleon for the 
first time would naturally conclude 
that its colour would be the same 
the next time he saw it ; but in this 
case the child's inference, as we 
know, might be contradicted on the 
next occasion of seeing the animal. 
— T. S. B.] ' So we may say of the 
' sun's rising : it is part and parcel 
' of our idea of the sun. So of one 
' billiard-ball putting a second in 
' motion ; our experience of billiard- 
' balls is that they put each other 
' in motion. 

8. ' Custom has primarily nothing 
' to do with the belief. If we had 
' only one experience of fire — if 
• we saw it only once applied to a 

■ combustible substance — we should 
- believe that it would burn, because 
' our idea of fire would be the idea 
' of a thing which burns. Custom 

■ has, however, secondarily, some 
' influence in correcting the ten- 
' dency to attribute properties to 
' things. Thus, a child sees a friend 
' who gives him an apple. The 



NOTE VI. 69 

1 next time the friend comes he is 
' asked for an apple, because the 
' idea of this friend is of a man 
6 who, amongst other properties, 
' has that of giving apples. No 
' apple is given, and this idea is 
' destroyed. Similarly, when all 
' our experience of things is con- 
' firmatory of our first experience, 
' we may say that habit or custom 
6 induces us to attribute certain ef- 
' fects to certain causes. When our 
6 subsequent experience contradicts 
' our first experience, we cease to 
- attribute those effects to those 
6 causes which we first experienced; 
6 this is only saying that our subse- 
' quent experience has destroyed or 
' altered the idea we formed at 
' first/* 

9. ' While it will be admitted by 
c the one party that between two 
' events, named respectively cause 
' and effect, no nexus is perceived 
' by us, over and above the mere 
' fact of antecedence and sequence ; 



* Lewes : Hist, of Phil., vol. ii. pp, 319- 
322. 



70 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' and that therefore Hume is right 
6 in saying, we " only perceive this 
' antecedence, and do not perceive 
'.the causal link"; on the other 
' hand it must be maintained, that 
' between those two events there is 
' a specific relation, a something 
' which makes the one succeed the 
' other, causing this particular ef- 
' feet rather than another ; and this 
' subtle link it is which is the nexus 
' contended for; this relation it is 
' which distinguishes a causal act 
' from one of accidental sequence. 
' There must be a peculiar rela- 
' tion existing between oxygen and 
6 metals, otherwise metals never 
' could be oxidised. The oxidation 
' of iron is an effect like the ignition 
' of paper ; but it is an effect pro- 

< ducible only through a specific 
' relation or cause. If cause is a 

< Relation, the reason of our in- 
' ability to perceive it as an isolated 
' existence, is the inability to isolate 
' a relation from its related terms. 
' It is not an object that can be 
' presented to consciousness. What- 
' ever maybe the noumenal existence 



NOTE VI. 71 

implied by the Kelation, our phe- 
nomenal knowledge must ever be 
limited to the mere recognition of 
related terms. To say that we 
cannot perceive this Eelation, and 
that antecedence and sequence are 
all that we can perceive, is only 
saying that we cannot penetrate 
beyond phenomena and their suc- 
cessions ; but this is no more a 
ground for the denial of a causal 
nexus, than it is for the denial of 
an external world. 

10. ' All things necessarily stand 
related to all other things ; some- 
times these relations are obtruded 
on our notice, because they pass 
from relations of co-existence into 
relations of succession, and we 
name them causes and effects ; at 
other times they remain in the 
background of unremarked co- 
existences, and our unsolicited 
attention overlooks them; we do 
not then name them cause and 
effect. The carbonate of lime, 
which I see before me as marble, 
suggests to me, in its inaction, no 



72 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' conception of power, or causation, 
' because my attention is not so- 
' licited by any successive relations ; 
' yet, if I had witnessed the action 
' of the carbonic acid on the lime, 
' which originally caused the two 
' substances to unite and form 
' marble, the passage from one state 
' to another would have suggested 
' the idea of some power at work. 
' It is clear that there must be rela- 
* tions existing between the carbonic 
' acid and the lime, which cause the 
' two to remain united, as we see 
' them in marble. We do not see 
' these relations— we do not there- 
' fore see the cause — but we know 
6 the cause must be in operation all 
' the while, although in consequence 
' of no changes taking place, we are 
' not solicited to observe the opera- 
' tion. Hence it is that only suc- 
' cessive phenomena are named 
6 causal ; and hence it is that Hume 
' was right in saying that, in a last 
' analysis, invariableness of antece- 
' dence and sequence is all that 
' experience tells us of causation ; 



NOTE VII. 73 

1 although he did not, I think, state 
' this position clearly, nor discern 
' its real basis.' * 



NOTE VII. 

(Referred to in § 1 2.) 
MR. MILL'S DEFINITION. 

i . ' When we define the cause of 
' anything (in the only sense in 

* which the present inquiry has any 
' concern with causes) to be the 
' antecedent which it invariably 
' follows, we do not use this phrase 
' as exactly synonymous with " the 
' antecedent which it has invariably 
6 followed in our past experience.' ' 
' Such a mode of conceiving causa- 
1 tion would be liable to the objection 
' very plausibly urged by Dr. Eeid, 
' namely, that according to this 
1 doctrine night must be the cause 

* of day, and day the cause of night; 
' since these phenomena have in- 



* Lewes : Hist, of Phil., vol. ii. pp. 325-6. 

E 



74 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

variably succeeded one another 
from the beginning of the world. 
But it is necessary to our using 
the word cause, that we should 
believe not only that the antece- 
dent always has been followed by 
the consequent, but that as long 
as the present constitution of things 
endures, it always will be so. And 
this would not be true of day and 
night. We do not believe that 
night will be followed by day under 
all imaginable circumstances, but 
only that it will be so, provided the 
sun rises above the horizon. . . . 
If there be any meaning which 
confessedly belongs to the term 
necessity, it is unconditionalness. 
That which is necessary, that 
which must be, means that which 
will be, whatever supposition we 
may make in regard to all other 
things. The succession of day 
and night evidently is not neces- 
sary in this sense. It is condi- 
tional on the occurrence of other 
antecedents. . . . 

2. ' Invariable sequence, there- 
fore, is not synonymous with 



NOTE VIII. 75 

'causation, unless the sequence, 
6 besides being invariable, is uncon- 
' ditional. . . . 

3. ' We may define, therefore, the 
c cause of a phenomenon to be the 
1 antecedence, or the concurrence 
' of antecedents, on which it is 
' invariably and unconditionally con- 
' sequent.'* 



NOTE VIII. 

(Referred to in § 13.) 
SIR W. HAMILTON'S THEORY. 

1. ' "When we are aware of some- 
thing which begins to be, we are, 
by the necessity of our intelligence, 
constrained to believe that it has 
a cause. But what does the ex- 
pression, that it has a cause, signify? 
If we analyse our thought, we shall 
find that it simply means, that as 
we cannot conceive anv new ex- 



* Mill : System of Logic, b. iii. ch. v. § 5. 

E 2 



76 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

istence to commence, therefore, all 
that now is seen to arise under a 
new appearance, had previously an 
existence under a prior form. We 
are utterly unable to realise in 
thought the possibility of the com- 
plement of existence being either 
increased or diminished. We are 
unable, on the one hand, to con- 
ceive nothing becoming something, 
— or, on the other, something be- 
coming nothing. When God is 
said to create out of nothing, we 
construe this to thought by sup- 
posing that He evolves existence 
out of Himself ; we view the Creator 
as the cause of the universe. Ex 
nihilo nihil; in nihilum nil posse 
reverti expresses, in its purest form, 
the whole intellectual phenomenon 
of causality. 

2. ' There is thus conceived an 
absolute tautology between the 
effect and its causes. We think 
the causes to contain all that is 
contained in the effect ; the effect 
to contain nothing which was 
not contained in the causes. Take 
an example. A neutral salt is an 



NOTE VIII. 77 

' effect of the conjunction of an acid 
' and alkali. Here we do not, and 
' here we cannot, conceive that, in 
1 effect, any new existence has been 
' added, nor can we conceive that 
1 any has been taken away. . . . 
' Omnia mutantur ; nihil interit — is 
' what we think, what we must think. 
1 This then is the mental phsenome- 
' non of causality, — that we neces- 
' sarily deny in thought that the 
6 object which appears to begin to 
' be, really so begins ; and that we 
1 necessarily identify its present with 
' its past existence/" 

3. Again, — ' But can we think 
1 that quantum of existence of which 
' an object, real or ideal, is the 
' complement, as non-existent, either 
' in time past, or in time future ? 
' Make the experiment. Try to 
' think the object of your thought 
6 as non-existent in the moment 
6 before the present. You cannot. 
6 Try it in the moment before that. 
* You cannot. Nor can you annihi- 



* Hamilton : Lectures, ii. pp. 3.77 8. 



70 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' late it by carrying it back to any 
6 moment, however distant in the 
' past. You may conceive the parts 
6 of which this complement of ex- 
' istence is composed, as separated ; 
' if a material object, you can think 
' it as shivered to atoms, sublimated 
' into aether ; but not one iota of 
' existence can you conceive as an- 
' nihilated, which subsequently you 
' thought to exist. In like manner 
6 try the future, — try to conceive the 
' prospective annihilation of any 
' present object, — of any atom of 
' any present object. You cannot. 
' All this may be possible, but of it 
' we cannot think the possibility. . . . 
4. ' But in this application is the 
' principle of causality not given ? 
' Why, what is the law of causality ? 
' Simply this, — that when an object 
' is presented phenomenally as com- 
' mencing, we cannot but suppose 
' that the complement of existence, 
' which it now contains, has pre- 
' viously been ; — in other words, that 
' all that we at present come to know 
' as an effect must previously have 
' existed in its causes ; though what 



NOTE VIIIc 79 

' these causes are we may perhaps 
' be altogether unable even to sur- 
' mise.'* 

5. Of all explanations of causa- 
tion the above really appears the 
least satisfactory; but I can only 
add, in this place, that the reader 
will find in Mr. Mill's Examination 
of Hamilton an able answer to it. 

6. In § 13 Hamilton's theory is 
described as a corollary from the 
permanence of matter. This is the 
objective side merely; the essence 
of this doctrine lies in the subjective 
side — what he calls an impotence of 
the mind. The two sides seem to 
me equally far from furnishing an 
explanation of causality — to say 
nothing of their questionableness 
as matters of fact. Curiously enough, 
Mr. Herbert Spencer holds Hamil- 
ton's opinion respecting the inde- 
structibility of matter. f This is 
another instance of what is mentioned 
in note v. 



* Hamilton : Lectures, ii. pp. 399 — 400. 
f First Principles, 2nd ed. p. 175. 



8o APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 



NOTE IX. 

(Eeferred to in § 14.) 
DR. BAIN'S RENDERING. 

1. ' The greatest innovation [in 
' part ii.] is the rendering of Cause 
' by the new doctrine called the 
1 Conservation, Persistence or Cor- 
' relation of Force.' — Logic, Preface. 

2. ' A great advance, in the mode 
' of viewing causation, is made by 
' the modern discovery of the law 
' named Conservation of Force. 

' The great generalization of re- 
1 cent times, variously designated 
' the Conservation [&c] of Force, is 
' the highest expression of Cause 
1 and Effect. In every instance of 
' causation, there is a putting forth 
6 of force in given circumstances, 
6 and the law in question states with 
' exactness what becomes of the 
1 force, and is often the sufficing 
' explanation of the special phe- 
' nomena, as well as the embodi- 



NOTE IX. 8 1 

' ment of nature's uniformity in 
1 successions. 

' In the number and complicacy 
' of causal conditions, we feel the 
* want of some principle of analysis 
' or distribution under heads. Such 
' analysis is provided in the Law of 
1 Conservation ; according to it, we 
1 view every cause under two aspects, 
' (i) an embodiment oi moving power 
' in given amount, and (2) a colloca- 
' twn or arrangement of circum- 
' stances, for the power to operate 
1 in. These two being given, the 
' law declares the result.' — Logic, 
b. iii. ch. iv. § 8. 

3. ' Causation, viewed as Con- 
' servation, is thus the transferring 
6 or re-embodying of a definite 
' amount of Force.' — lb. § 12. 

4. ' The Law of Conservation ex- 
' hausts Causation, viewed as the 
6 transfer of Force or Moving Power, 
6 but leaves many complicated, and, 
6 as yet, unsolved questions of col- 
' location.' — lb. § 13. 

5. ' Sir William Hamilton is 
' singular among metaphysicians, in 

e 3 



8:2 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' giving to the Law of Causation 
' a form almost exactly co-incident 
6 with the principle of Conservation, 
' which he may be said to have 
' anticipated/ — lb. § 17. 



NOTE X. 

(Referred to in § 15.) 
ME. POWELL'S DISTINCTION. 

1. ' In common language, the 
' term cause is used with considerable 
' latitude of meaning ; and even in 
' many discussions pretending to 
' a philosophic character, a slight 
' examination will show that it bears 
' several distinct kinds of significa- 
' tion. We are apt to use the same 
' word, and thence imagine that 
' we are speaking of the same thing, 
' in cases which are essentially 
6 different. . . . 

2. ' We may say the cause of the 
' motions of a watch is the tendency 
' of the main- spring to unwind itself ; 



NOTE X. 83 

and the cause of the flight of the 
cricket-ball is the voluntary effort 
of the player. These are two in- 
stances which would seem, at first 
sight, closely to resemble each 
other; but when accurately ex- 
amined, we find an important 
distinction between them. In the 
former instance, we trace the order 
of dependence of the motions from 
the index to the wheels, from the 
wheels to the fusee, and so up to 
the tendency of the spring to un- 
wind ; and this we refer to the 
property of elasticity ; which again 
may possibly depend on some still 
higher principle in the nature and 
arrangement of the particles of 
which elastic bodies are composed. 
But to whatever extent we may 
advance in thus analysing the effect 
up to its simplest elements, one 
thing is all along manifest; viz. 
that the very highest principle of 
any such series must essentially 
be some general, fixed, inherent, 
property of matter; by virtue of 
which it is capable of being in- 
fluenced in particular ways, and 



84 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' by particular agents ; but yet is 
' wholly inert, and incapable of arbi- 
' trarily originating any of the effects 
' referred to. 

3. ' In the second case, we may 
' observe, it is true, a like series of 
' effects in succession dependent one 
' on another. Motion is communi- 
' cated mechanically to the bail from 
' the sudden action of the arm ; this 
' results from the contraction of the 
' muscles acting on the bones as 
' levers ; the muscular contraction 
1 again may be shown to depend 
' on some peculiar influence of the 
' nerves ; this again may possibly be 
' traced to some higher principle ; 
' we may advance, in short, as far 
' as physiological science can carry 
' us ; and thus far, this and the 
1 former case are exactly alike. But 
' here at the commencement of the 
' whole train, there must still be an 
' influence or cause of some kind 
6 different from any mechanical 
' power; depending on voluntary 
6 agency ; capable of originating the 
' series of consequences from itself; 
' acting by different laws from those 



NOTE X. 85 

1 of matter; in a word, an agency 
' or influence of a moral kind. . . . 
4. 6 Such a voluntary agency, 
' such an influence or power, of 
6 which we feel conscious, and which 
' implies the action (however incom- 
' prehensible) of mind on matter, is 
' what we may properly distinguish 
1 by the term moral causation. The 
1 former case we may call, by way 
' of contradistinction, an instance 
' of physical causation. In the study 
6 of causes acting in the natural 
' world, we must carefully observe 
' this distinction. Cases where 
' voluntary or moral agency is con- 
' cerned, can only be considered in 
.' physical inquiry so far as they 
' properly come under the laws of 
' inert matter, or belong to those 
' kinds of physical action which 
' are the subjects of dynamical or 
' chemical research. To go beyond 
' this is to confound physical causes 
' with moral, physical science with 
4 metaphysical.' — The Connexion of 
Natural and Divine Truth, sec. ii. 
pp. 78—82. 



86 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 



NOTE XL 

(Referred to in § 16.) 

MR. ATKINSON'S VIEW. 

' Men have been wandering amidst 
poesies, theologies andmetapkysics, 
and have been caught in the web 
of ideal creations, and have to be 
brought back again to particulars 
and material conditions ; to investi- 
gate the real world, and those laws 
of being and action which are the 
form and nature of things, and the 
phenomena which they present, as 
they are here, within us and about 
us in reality and in truth, and not 
as we would fancy them to be. 
There are not two philosophies, 
one for Mind and another for 
Matter. Nature is one, and to be 
studied as a whole. " There is 
nothing in nature,'' says Bacon, 
" but individual bodies, exhibiting 
clear individual effects, according to 
particular laws." Instinct, passion, 



NOTE XII. 87 

1 thought, &c, are effects of organ - 
' ised substances : but men Save 
' sought to make out a philosophy 
' of mind, by studying these effects 
' apart from causes, and have even 
' asserted that mind was entirely 
' independent of body, and having 
* some unintelligible nature of its 
' own, called free will, — not subject 
6 to law, or dependent on material 
6 conditions ; though a man has no 
' more power to determine his own 
' will than he has wings to fly/ — 
Mans Nature and Development, First 
Letter to Miss Martineau, pp. $—&. 



NOTE XII. 

(Referred to in § 16.) 

DISCUSSION ON LAW. 

1 . The following extracts are from 
the National Reformer newspaper — 
a journal devoted to the advocacy 
of opinions very shocking to the 
respectable and higher classes : 
atheism, republicanism, and malthu- 



88 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

sianism. However, one thing at 
least may be granted in its favour : 
viz. the editor's impartial admittance 
into its columns of metaphysical 
articles at variance with his own 
views. 

2. ' Will any metaphysician, either 

* on the spiritual or materialistic 
6 side, define Power — (not as Hegel 
6 does law or justice though — as 
' annihilation of annihilation) ? ' — 
B. T. W. R,Nov.3, 1867. 

3. ' Hume has long ago answered 
' it [i.e. this question] for us. When 

■ we examine into any instance of 
' what we call cause and effect, and 

* try to discover wherein the Power 
' consists, we find that we can dis- 

* cover nothing but sequence. . . . 
' . . . Comte tells us to confine our- 
' selves to phenomena, and not to 
' waste our time in seeking the causes 
' of things which are beyond the grasp 
' of the human understanding. Comte 
' was not right in everything he said ; 
6 but this is one of the true principles 
' of Science, which he, in common 



NOTE XII. 89 

' with other philosophers, has cor- 
' rectly discerned/ — T. S. B., Nov. 
10, 1867. 

4. ' What is truth ? Iconoclast 
' tells us that extension is only a 
' quality of substance. Mr. Simon 
' continues to assert that the sub- 
' stance as well as the extension is 
' but a quality of mind. Mr. Bray, 
* of Coventry, as well as Mr. Wyld, 
' of Edinburgh, in elaborate and 
' learned arguments declare that 
1 there is no such thing as matter, 
1 that both matter and mind are but 
' conditions of force ; whilst T. S. B. 
' now assures us that this supposed 
1 force itself has no existence, and 
i he gives Hume and Comte as his 
' authority for asserting that we have 
' no reason for believing that any- 
' thing exists beyond the sequence/ 
— H. G. Atkinson, Nov. 24, 1867. 

5. <B. T. W. B. wishes for a 
4 definition of Power. May I sug- 
' gest that power is simply an innate 
' principle or attribute of matter, or 
' rather it is the physical action 



90 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

6 itself ; and the notion, or rather 
' feeling, that power is a something 
1 distinct from matter, is merely an 
' illusion of the muscular sense as 
' shown by Brown long ago. To say 
' that matter is force is the same as 
' to say that force is matter — it is 
6 simply a choice of terms — and the 
' idea that matter would be inert 
' except for a something else push- 
' ing behind, or carrying it along, is 
' absurd, and an attempt to explain 
' a plain fact by some other imagi- 
' nary fact, quite unintelligible and 
' itself unexplained, and which is 
' but riding our elephant again upon 
' the back of the tortoise. The 
' spiritual medium of action between 
' bodies is not immaterial, but in- 
' finitely material, throughout Nature 
' as affirmed by Bacon and Hobbes, 
6 and by Newton, and now clearly 
' demonstrated in modern astro- 
' nomy. If we are not satisfied to 
' recognise the ability or power of 
' matter in the actions themselves, 
' with the mental sense of the same, 
' we find no other fact or argument 
' to help us further, and shall come 



NOTE XII. 91 

' to perceive that the supposed need 
' is nothing but a mental fiction.' — 
H. G. Atkinson, Dec. 8, 1867. 

6. ' As for a law independent of 
' power, it is fatuity to talk of it. 
' We don't know that there is any 
' law; but power is certain. Hume's 
' idea of sequence gives us little 
' light. Indeed it is simple nega- 
' tion, but it cannot disprove the 
' fact' [query, " of Power existing " ?]. 
' It were about as rational to prove 
' our own being by " Cogito, ergo 
'sum" as to prove the existence 
<of power/— B. T. W. R,, Dec. 
22, 1867. 

7. 6 There is a good deal of mis- 
' conception afloat as to what we 
' know under the name of Physical 
' Laws. The Duke of Argyll has 
' clone good service by his Reign of 
' Law in the diffusion of a correcter 
' knowledge on this subject ; but 
' even his Grace is not .quite perfect. 

< B. T. W. R. writes in the N. R. 
' for Dec. 22nd, that we have cer- 
* tain knowledge of the existence of 



gl APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' power, but not of the existence of 
' law. (The converse would have 
1 been more true.) But has he a 
'• clear idea of what is meant by the 
' term, Law, when he makes such a 
' statement ? I can scarcely think 
' so. Law— natural law— is Order, 
' nothing else. We discover (either 
' directly, by observation ; or in- 
6 directly, by reason) certain regu- 
6 larities or order in phenomena. 
' This regularity, or this order, we 
' call a Law — a Law of Nature. . . 

8. ' It is frequently said that an 
1 event happens in consequence of a 
' law of nature. But, strictly, such 
6 an expression must be considered 
< incorrect. The phrase does very 
' well as long as it is not misunder- 
6 stood; but there will be the danger 
4 that more is inferred from the 
<■ words than what ought only to be 
' understood. In popular language 
6 the conclusion of a syllogism is 
6 said to be true, in consequence of 

* the truth of the premisses. In 
' one sense this is so ; but it must 
' be borne in mind that in reality 

* the premisses contain the con- 



NOTE XII. 93 

elusion, and that consequently all 
syllogistic reasoning is a petitio 
principii. Thus, in the reasoning, 
" All men are mortal, and therefore 
Augustus is mortal/' — Augustas, in 
the conclusion is included in the 
All men of the premiss : and there- 
fore the premiss cannot be rightly 
called the cause of Augustus's mor- 
tality. Precisely so also with what 
are called the Laws of Nature 
They stand in just the same re 
lation to individual phenomena a:- 
the major premiss stands to the 
conclusion in a syllogism of the 
first figure. They are wider. The 
mortality of mankind might, for 
example, be called a Law, and the 
mortality of Augustus a fact under 

that Law And so with all 

other laws of nature. They are 
merely ascertained regularities— a 
class or order of events. 'And con- 
sequently they are of all degrees of 
wideness. The term Law is re- 
lative, just as Class, Genus, Species 
are. A Law of Nature is a Laiv, 
if viewed in relation to instances 
under it, but becomes itself an in- 



94 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' dividual instance when viewed in 
' relation to still wider Laws or 
' generalizations. And thus Nature 
' presents the appearance of a vast 
' and complicated piece of machinery 
' containing wheels within wheels ; 
' for here we have Laws within 
' Laws.'— T. S. B., Jan. 5, 1868. 

9. ' A word with my friend T. S. B , 
' who says that the laws of nature 
' are merely an ascertained regu- 
' larity, a class or order of events. 
' No doubt regularity and uniformity 
' is a fundamental law T of nature and 
' of the principles and forms and 
6 objects, and all other material con- 
* ditions, as w T ell as of the sequence 
' of events ; but to confound the re- 
' gularity of the sequence with the 
' law or principle of the action itself, 
1 and to say that the laws of gravity 
' and the principles of the triangle 
' are a mere class or order of events, 
' is dealing in abstractions when we 
' want to get at the nature of the 
' laws or forms of the entities and 
i actions themselves. May as well 
' say that an object is the space it 



NOTE XII. 



95 



' occupies, as that the sequence or 

' order is the law itself. Of 

' the fundamental character and con- 
' dition of matter we know nothing, 
' and cannot possibly know any- 
' thing ; the fact is beyond the limits 
' of our powers of perception and of 
■ thought altogether ; but the uni- 
6 formity of the relations of things 
' and of events, we can and do ob- 
1 serve, and the form of these rela- 
' tions we term law. Whatever ex- 
' ists must have a form of being and 
' of action. It cannot be what it is 
' not ; but must be subject to the 
4 form or law of its constitution, or 
1 it would be something else, which 
1 is nonsense. And the form and 
' principle of this being or action 
' we term law, and it is and must 
1 be uniform and regular.' — H. G. 
Atkinson, Jan. 12, 1868. 

10. ' Mr. Atkinson says that a 
' Law of Nature is something more 
' than a general fact, but he does 
' not tell us what else it is. I have 
' tried hard to discover what this 
' extra quality can be, but in vain. 



9 6 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' A Law of Nature and a General 
' Fact seem to me to be convertible 
1 terms. What is the Law of Gravi- 
' tation ? A general fact, namely, 
' that bodies attract each other 
6 directly as the mass, and in- 
i versely as the square of the dis- 
' tance. What are Kepler's Laws ? 
6 " Simply and purely an Order of 
( Facts established by observation.""* 
' And so with all other . . . Laws/ 
— T. S. B., Feb. 2, 1868. 

11. ' T. S. B. seems to see that 
' his former wording of his definition 
6 of Law cannot be upheld, so has 
' worded it afresh, and now says 
1 that a Law of Nature is a general 
' fact. But are there no particular 
6 Laws, as when Bacon said, " There 
' is nothing in Nature but indi- 
6 vidual bodies, exhibiting clear in- 
' dividual effects according to par- 
' ticular laws " ? And in regard 
' to the uniformity of the rule of 
' Nature in the reign of law, is it 



* Duke of Argyll: Reign of Law. ist 
ed.p. 67. 



NOTE XII. 



97 



' not the fixity of the law and prin- 
1 ciple of action, as in this instance 
' by the laws of gravity, that is the 
1 cause or reason of the uniformity ? 
' ... Of course a Law is a Fact 
' (what is not ?), be it a particular 
' law. a general law, or, like the law 
' of uniformity, a universal law. But 
' Laws are not abstractions, but the 
' nature, property or principles (call 
' it as you will,) ... of the sub- 
' stance or body in question, exhibited 
' in the effects, but determined by 
' an active principle inherent in the 
' material/ — H.Gr. Atkinson, Feb. 16, 
1868. 

1 2. ' Mr. Atkinson says I saw my 
' former definition could not be up- 
' held. That is a mistake, for I 
' now repeat it. We apply the term 
' Laws of Nature to the Uniformities 
' or the Eules or the General Facts 
1 or the Universal Occurrences or 
' the Order of Events (for all these 
' phrases are of the same meaning) 
' which we find in phenomena. Mr. 
4 Atkinson asks, Are there no par- 
1 ticular laws ? That depends on 



98 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' what he means by particular. Per- 
6 haps he would call Kepler's Laws 
' particular, because they apply only 
1 to the planets. . . . These terms 
6 are relative. A Law, Order or 
i Uniformity observable throughout 
' the whole Animal Kingdom is 
' a less Law than one observable 
' throughout the whole of material 
' things, but a greater Law than one 
' applicable to quadrupedsraerely.'- — 
T. S. B., March 1, 1868. 

13. - T. S. B. persists in the as- 
6 sertion that the Laws of Nature 
' are merely the regularity or order 
' observed and not any principles 
6 on which such order must depend, 
' and of which in fact the order is 
' the consequence. ... Of course 
' all Laws are uniform in their 
' action, but nevertheless the uni- 
' fortuity is not the laws on which 
4 it depends, — general truths are not 
' the principles on which they rest, 
' — and matter and its laws of ex- 
' istence and action admit of no 
' divorce.' — H. G. Atkinson, March 8, 
1868. 



NOTE XII. 



99 



14. ' The difference between Mr. 

* Atkinson and myself is merely a 

* question of terms. I apply the 
' name Laivs to the rules or general 
' facts observed among phenomena ; 
' Mr. Atkinson, on the other hand, 
' applies the term to the inherent 
' principles in matter on which the 
6 phenomena "depend. . . . Dr. 
' Fleming says, — " The word Law 
' expresses the constant and regular 
' order according to which an energy 
' or agen operates" — not, (as Mr. 
' Atkinson would say) the energy or 
' agent itself— if there be such a 
< thing/— T. S. B. March 29, 1868. 

15. ' T. S. B. misrepresents my 
' statements. . . . He quotes from 
6 Dr. Fleming the following passage, 
' — " The word Law expresses the 
' constant and regular order accord- 
' ing to which an energy or agent 
6 operates, [" and adds, — "] not, as 
' Mr. Atkinson would say, the energy 
' or agent itself, if there be such a 
' thing." Now I have made no 
' such statement as that the Law or 
' Principle of action is the energy 

f 2 



IOO APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' or agent itself. But Mr. B. seems 
' to suppose there may even — for 
' aught he can tell — be no cause or 
' agent at all, but an uncaused order 
' resting on no principle as a reason. 
' . . . But what we must recognise 
' as men of science is a substance 
' or material nature as a basis, with 
' its essential and necessary law or 
' principle of action, determining all 
' phenomena. . . . And therefore 
' Mr. Grove is quite justified in 
' speaking of Force as meaning 
' " that active principle inseparable 
' from matter, which induces its 
' various changes." I do not say, 
' nor does Mr. Grove mean, that the 
' active principle inseparable from 
' the matter is the matter itself; 
' and those who cannot draw the 
' distinction between the order of 
' nature, the law or principle on 
' which such order depends, and the 
' matter acting, must, I think, be 
' wanting in the fundamental faculty 
' essential to a philosopher/ — H. G. 
Atkinson, April 5, 1868. 



NOTE XIII. IOI 



NOTE XII r. 

(Eeferred to in § 18.) 

EXTEACT FROM STEWART. 

i. ' Mr. Hume had the merit of 
' shewing clearly to philosophers, 
' that our common language, with 
' respect to cause and effect, is 
' merely analogical ; and that if 
' there be any links among physical 
6 events, they must for ever remain 
6 invisible to us. If this part of his 
' system be admitted ; and if, at the 
' same time, we admit the authority 
' of that principle of the mind, which 
' leads us to refer every change to 
6 an efficient cause ; Mr. Hume's 
' doctrine seems to be more favoura- 
6 ble to theism, than even the com- 
' mon notions upon this subject ; 
* as it keeps the Deity always in 
' view, not only as the first, but as 
1 the constantly operating efficient 
' cause in Nature, and as the 'great 



102 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 

' connecting principle among all the 
' various phenomena which we ob- 
' serve. This, accordingly, was the 
' conclusion which Malebranche de- 
' duced from premises very nearly 
' the same with Mr. Hume's.' — Elem. 
Phil. Ham. Mind., 2nd ed. note D. 



EXTRACT FROM BERKELEY. 

2. ' The order and course of 
' things, and the experiments we 
' daily make, shew there is a mind 
' that governs and actuates this 
' mundane system, as the proper 
' real agent and cause. . . . We 
' have no proof, either from experi- 
' ment or reason, of any other agent 
' or efficient cause than mind or 
' spirit. When therefore we speak 
' of corporeal agents or corporeal 
' causes, this is to be understood in 
' a different, subordinate, and im- 
' proper sense.' — Siris, sect. 154, 
p. 70. 



NOTE XIV. 



lO^ 



NOTE XIV. 
(Referred to in § 19 ) 
SYNOPSIS OF OPINIONS. 



1. 



What is Causation really ? 

Hume [in his ^ 

Treatise] \ — Invariable suc- 

BaclenPoivell V cession and no- 



[wiih respect to 
physical causes] 



thins more. 



Mill. — Unconditional invariable 
sequence. 



Eeid 

Beattie 

B.Powellhcith 
respect to moral 
causes] 

Wheicell 

Leices 

Atkinson 



— Efficient Pro- 
duction. 



104 



APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 



Sir W. Hamilton .- 
of Substance. 



-Transference 



Bain. — Transference of Force. 
Kant. — A relation or condition of 



things. 

Malebranche 
Berkeley 
Stewart 
Leibnitz j 

Hume [in his 
' Inquiry '] 
Brown 
Comte 
Mansel 



— An act of the 
f Deity. 



— The question is 
unanswerable. It 
y is beyond the 
limits of our know- 
ledge. 



Is there any necessary connection 
between Causes and Effects ? 



Reid 

Beattie 

Leibnitz 

Kant 

Whewell 

Lewes 

Atkinson 



> — Yes. 



NOTE XIV. 



IO5 



Malebranche 

Berkeley 

Stewart 



— Yes, — if you 
allow that God is 
[ the cause of every 
J change. 



Hume [in the~) 
'Treatise'] } — No. 

Hamilton J 



Hume [in the^ 
' Inquiry '] 
Brown 
Comte 
Mill 
Mansel 



—The subject is 
^beyond the limits 
of our knowledge. 



Is Causation universal ? 



Beid 

Beattie 

Kant 

Brown 

Wheivell 

Mill J 


► — Yes. 


Leives ] 
Mansel J 


— We have no 
means of knowing 



F 3 



I06 APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 



How is the idea of Causation in 
natural events produced in our 
minds ? 

Lewes. — By Experience. 

Beid ) — By Common 

Beattie } Sense. 

Hume. — By habit. 

Hamilton. — By the impossibility 
of conceiving something coming 
from nothing. 

Whewell } -^ I^ti°n. 

Maine de Biran ^ ^i 

yr-n, \ OViX OWI1 VOlU!2- 

Mansel J tar ? actionS ' 



Is the belief in the universality 
of Causation a necessary truth (i.e. 
an a priori judgment) ? 





NOTE XV. 


Beid 
Beattie 
Price 
Kant 


^ 


> — Yes. 


Brown 
Wheiveli 


j 




Hohbes 
Buckle 
Mill 
Lewes 


j*— No. 
) 




NOTE XV. 


(Kef erred to in § 8.) 


KANT'S DOCTRINE. 



107 



1 . Kant, ' could not contradict 
' the objections of Hume, . . . 
' but he rather availed himself of 
6 them, suffered them to hold good, 
' and took up, as perfectly well- 
' grounded, the fundamental position 
' of that sceptic, namely, that ex- 
' perience teaches us nothing of 



io8 



APPENDIX TO CHAP. II. 



' causality and a necessary con- 
' formity to law in nature. Of this 
' position, however, he made a 
1 wholly different and unexpected 
' use, since he discovered therein 
* the negative confirmation of an 
' ideal and subjective certainty. . . . 
' Kant saw at once, that the most 
' universal and highest conceptions 
' must have an entirely different 
' origin to the experience of the 
6 senses; that they were in them- 
6 selves, it is true, but empty forms, 
6 yet universally necessary in all 
' thinking and cognition ; and by 
' this very criterion of universality 
' and necessity, he believed that he 
' had recognised them to be of a 
' subjective character and resident 
' a priori in the cognitive faculty of 
' man/ — Chalybaus : Spec. Phil. 
(Tulk's trans.) Lect. ii. 

2. ' According to Kant, causality 
' is an inseparable condition of our 
' experience : a connexion in events 
' is requisite to our apprehending 
' them as events. . . . We cannot 
'.fix the mind upon occurrences, 



NOTE XV. IO9 

' without including these occurrences 
' in a series of causes and effects. 
' The relation of causation is a 
' condition under which we think of 
' events, as relations of space are a 
' condition under which we see 
' objects/ — Whewell : Hist. Scien. 
Ideas, b. iii. ch. iii. art 3. 

3. ' According to Kant we have 
' the idea of cause, and also the 
i belief that every commencing phe- 
4 nomenon implies the operation of 

* a cause. But these are merely forms 

* of our understanding, subjective 
6 conditions of human thought. In 
' conformity with a pre-existing law 
1 of our intelligence, we arrange 
' phenomena according to the rela- 
' tion of cause and effect. But we 
' know not whether, independently 
' of our form of thought, there be 
' any reality corresponding to our 

* idea of cause, or of productive 
' power/ — Fleming : Vocab. Phil. 
sec. ed. p. 80 (art. on Causality). 



CHAPTER III. 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



CHAPTEE III. 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 

i. After reading the conflicting 
opinions exhibited in the foregoing 
chapter, one feels inclined to throw 
up the whole inquiry in despair as a 
hopeless and inextricable puzzle. 
Or, at any rate, to ask whether the 
dispute really is concerning matters 
of fact — whether it be not, after all, 
merely an affair of definition. The 
word ' cause ' and its derivatives 
exist in the language — they convey 
ideas to the mind — and, in the 



I 14 CHAPTER III. 

affairs of common life, are under- 
stood by everybody ; — why, then (it 
may be asked), should metaphysi- 
cians by their subtleties create such 
unnecessary confusion ? Why should 
they throw obscurity over the mean- 
ings of terms which previously were 
clear and intelligible ? 

2. This question is natural though 
superficial. Philosophers are quite 
willing to let words retain their 
popular significations, provided they 
are not obtruded into topics for 
which they are unfitted. There are 
many words harmless enough when 
confined within the limits of com- 
monplaces ; but let them be used in 
the discussion of subjects in the 
slightest degree speculative, and the 
most dire confusion is the result. 

3. This is peculiarly the case with 
regard to the words 'cause/ &c. 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. II5 

Ordinarily they are sufficient for the 
ideas to be conveyed : employed 
about commonplaces they are never 
misunderstood. But when we see 
them occurring in speculations de- 
manding the utmost precision of 
language, where the least ambi- 
guity is fatal — when we find them 
employed, now to demonstrate 
the existence of a Deity — now to 
enforce the necessity of atheism ; 
when we see them used alike in 
arguments for freewill and in rea- 
sonings for fatalism — it is obvious 
that a closer scrutiny into the ideas 
they represent is rendered impera- 
tive. It may be that the popular 
notion of a cause is altogether in- 
applicable to these speculations. It 
may be that the use of the undefined 
word in such discussions is produc- 
tive of nothing but confusion and 



Il6 CHAPTER III. 

error. Our first step in this inquiry, 
then, will evidently be to ascertain 
the signification that the word 
' cause ' bears in common parlance ; 
— the meaning which people have 
when they speak of one thing 
■ causing ' another. 

4. What says Dr. Johnson ? Ac- 
cording to him ' to cause ' is ' to 
effect, to produce' — and 6 a cause,' 
' that which produces or effects any- 
thing/ Nine persons out of ten 
would give the same definitions, if 
suddenly asked. But properly they 
are not definitions at all — merely 
synonymes. To ' cause ' and to 
* produce ' or ' effect ' are convertible 
terms, and to give one as an explana- 
tion of the other is, to use Hume's 
phrase, 'to run in a circle.'* 

5. Is Hume's definition of ' in- 



* See ante, p. 34 . 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. I 1 7 

variable sequence ' a better one ? 
No ; for two reasons. First, as 
Eeid pointed out, many invariable 
successions are not causation. And 
secondly, some cases of causation do 
not involve sequence at all; cause 
and effect often appearing to be 
simultaneous or contemporaneous. 

6. Mr. Mill allows both these 
objections to Hume's definition, and 
seeks an amendment by, on the one 
hand, introducing the word uncon- 
ditional," and, on the other, by 
dropping the words antecedent and 
consequent. 'I have no objection,' 
he says, ' to define a cause, the 
assemblage of phenomena, which 
occurring, some other phenomenon 
invariably [and unconditionally] 
commences, or has its origin.' f 



System of Logic, b.iii. chap. v. § 5. 
f lb. § 6. 



I I 8 CHAPTER III. 

Now, this is more a description of 
certain facts relating to causality 
than a definition. Every assem- 
blage of phenomena which occurring, 
some other phenomenon invariably 
and unconditionally commences, 
may as a matter-of-fact be a cause. 
As a matter-of-fact every one-horned 
quadruped may be a rhinoceros ; 
but no one would think of giving ' a 
one-horned quadruped ' as a defini- 
tion of that animal. 

7. Such is the objection to Mr. 
Mill's definition when criticised 
literally, or according to the bare 
meaning of its terms. But if judged 
in regard to what is implied (or 
rather, what would be tacitly added 
by the generality of persons), the 
objection would be the same as that 
to Johnson's definition. The word 
occurring may be interpreted as 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. I I 9 

merely a participle of time (e.g. 'when 
it may happen to occur ') : this is 
the bare or literal meaning. Or it 
may be interpreted with the implied 
addition of the causal-idea, which is 
the very notion to be defined : e.g. 
6 the storm occurring, the people 
grew frightened ' implies the pro- 
duction of one event by the other, 
in addition to their relation in time. 
And thus we return to the synonymes 
from which we started. 

8. Is there no escape from this 
metaphysical whirlpool of synony- 
mous terms ? Must we always be 
swept back into it ? The words 
which Hume gives as convertible, 
or nearly so, with causality are — 
efficacy, agency, power, force, energy, 
necessity, connection, and productive 
quality. All of these, except ' neces- 
sity ' and ' connection,' we can pass 



120 CHAPTER III. 

by ; for they imply some power of a 
cause over an effect — exactly what 
we are wishing to analyse. ' Con- 
nection ' we can also pass by — being 
simply relation — a notion too wide 
for our purpose. The remaining 
word, namely, 'necessity/ may per- 
haps be the key to the difficulty. 

9. It is admitted now by all that, 
whether there be or be not an objec- 
tive necessity connecting causes and 
effects, it is at all events perfectly 
imperceptible. Between events no 
necessary connection can be per- 
ceived. Yet, nevertheless, the pre- 
vailing belief is, that there is such a 
necessity in every case of causation. 
Over and above the idea that an 
effect unconditionally and invariably 
accompanies its cause is the notion 
that it must do so — that it is 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 121 

obliged to do so. Whenever their 
connection is thought to be con- 
tingent, events are not called cause 
and effect ; their conjunction is then 
styled ' merely a coincidence.' Hence 
the idea of necessity is an essential 
portion — a sine qua non- — of the 
causal notion. 

10. Now, as necessity cannot be 
perceived in phenomena, it is plain 
that the idea cannot have originated 
from the contemplation of physical 
events. Every one must have an 
idea of ' must ' altogether apart from 
phenomena before he can attribute 
it to them. The idea is an intellec- 
tual one ; and the more civilised 
(i.e. educated) a nation, the stronger 
is its grasp on the notion. Some 
savage races seem scarcely to possess 
the idea at all ; to them everything 

G 



122 CHAPTER III. 

appears the result of chance. * They 
have not had the primary mental 
idea of necessity developed, and con- 
sequently have it not to attribute to 
external events. 

1 1 . This primary mental idea of 
necessity which must be developed 
before the notion of causality can 
arise, is what is called by meta- 
physicians ' logical necessity.' It 
is a perception of what Professor 
Bain calls the 'Law of Consistency.'! 
It is seen that certain things must 
accompany certain other things ; 
otherwise there would be involved 
an inconsistency or contradiction. 
There cannot be hills without 
valleys ; if the premisses of a syl- 
logism are true, the conclusion must 
also be true ; two straight lines can- 



* See Note xvi. f See Note xvii. 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. I 23 

not enclose a space ; and so on. 
With the perception of the absolute- 
ness and unconditionalness of such 
truths, dawns on the mind the idea 
of necessity, the notion of a ' must.' 
This once possessed, its transference 
to phenomena is easy. 

1 2. The problem for us is to find 
what truth there is in the prevalent 
belief concerning causation : are we 
justified in transferring the attribute 
of necessity from axioms and demon- 
strated propositions to the relation 
between natural events ? Hume, in 
his Treatise of Human Nature, as we 
have seen, maintained that we are 
not ; that we believe in necessary 
connection by an illogical process of 
inference ; that, in fine, we are so 
used to witness certain combinations 
of phenomena that habit induces 
the conviction of certainty. 

g 2 



124 CHAPTER III. 

13. There is much truth in this 
theory ; and, consequently, it has 
numerous supporters. We shall 
presently see, however, that it is 
only a half-truth. It gives, as it 
were, one side of the medal; but 
there is another side which needs 
to be supplied before the whole of 
the truth can be seen. Of that anon. 
In the meanwhile the importance of 
Hume's half-truth must be insisted 
on. 

14. If we divest ourselves of our 
acquired knowledge and beliefs, and 
imagine ourselves observing for the 
first time any succession or correla- 
tion of events, we shall see that 
there is nothing in them or their 
conjunction to tell us of power or 
necessity. It is only by witnessing 
the same combination of phenomena 
several times, that we get the idea 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 1 25 

of invariability, and thence that of 
necessity. 

15. For example, the phenomena 
of gravitation are so common and 
we are so used to them that we 
attribute a necessity to them. But 
if we had never before seen a body 
fall, there would be nothing in the 
descent of the first thing we saw 
fall to point to any necessity. For 
all we could know to the contrary, 
the objects might just as well have 
remained motionless, or have gone 
in any other direction than down- 
wards. 

16. Take any other case at ran- 
dom amongst phenomena ; and it 
will be the same. We do not know 
the efficient cause of anything. We 
only know secondary or conditional 
causes, which properly speaking are 
not efficient causes at all. Scientific 



126 CHAPTER III. 

men are aware of this, and speak 
now of the ' conditions ' of pheno- 
mena rather than of their ' causes/ 
For example : The insertion of zinc 
and copper, connected together in 
a certain manner, in diluted sul- 
phuric acid (hydric sulphate), is 
called one of the causes or condi- 
tions of the production of the elec- 
tricity, &c. But what right have 
w r e to assert that there is any neces- 
sary connection between the one and 
the other ? None. In short we only 
know conditions. We do not know 
the wherefore of anything. The 
' explanations ' of phenomena, if 
made in order to assign the causes, 
are nothing but solemn scientific 
babble to cover our ignorance ; but 
if made merely to inform us of the 
conditions or circumstances or uni- 
formities which attend phenomena, 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. I 27 

they are useful so far, and serve to 
establish ' laws ' or ' rules. '* 

17. There is a widespread mis- 
conception concerning the ( laws ' of 
nature. They are spoken of as if 
they possessed power or force. One 
often hears a child's question, ' Why 
do things fall ? ' answered by — ' Be- 
cause of the law of gravitation;' 
as if the law of gravitation, instead 
of being a mere generalization 
from the facts to be explained, were 
a different thing altogether, a force 
of some kind. This is surely ' put- 
ting the cart before the horse.' It 
is equivalent to the following : ' Why 
did Mr. Smith die ? Because of 
the law of mortality.' The true 
answer to a child who asks why 
things fall to the ground, is this : 
' No one knows. But it is an ob- 



* See Note xix. 



128 CHAPTER III. 

served fact that under certain cir- 
cumstances all bodies do fall/ Mr. 
Lewes has well exposed the mean- 
inglessness of such explanations as 
' Animals live because of their vi- 
tality/ ' Watches go because of their 
watch-force/ ' Things fall because of 
their falling force ' (i.e. 'gravitation'). 
Mr. Mill, too, in his " System of 
Logic,' ' has explained the true nature 
of * law.' Professor Bain and several 
other writers take the same position ; 
and the Duke of Argyll gives an 
analysis of law which virtually 
amounts to the same view.* 

1 8. In short, 'law' is merely the 
name we give to generalizations — 
or, in logical language, to universal 
propositions which we believe to be 
true. i This man is mortal ' is a 



* See Note xx. See also ante. Note. xii. 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. J 29 

1 particular ' proposition, and there- 
fore no law ; ' all men are mortal/ a 
universal proposition, is a law, a law 
of human nature. ' It is raining ' 
is particular; 'it always rains on 
Sundays ' is universal, and would, if 
true, be a law. 

19. Thus, law, as law, does not 
involve necessity, whatever the popu- 
lar opinion on the point may be. 
Order or uniformity may be conceived 
happening by chance ; and wherever 
there is uniformity there is that 
which may be expressed by a uni- 
versal proposition — namely law. 

20. There is, however, a necessity 
flowing from a law — the necessity of 
implication or consistency — the ne- 
cessity that if a law is true every 
instance coming under or included 
in it must be in agreement with it. 

g3 



I30 CHAPTER III. 

This is merely logical necessity — the 
necessity which connects the conclu- 
sion of a syllogism to the premisses. 
Thus, 

All men are mortal ; 

Dion is a man ; 

Dion is mortal, 

is an example of the simplest pos- 
sible syllogism. Alter the arrange- 
ment a little, but preserve the 
reasoning,- — 

All men are mortal ; [Law] 

Dion (being a man) is mortal, [Instance] 

and the identity will be at once seen. 

21. Or, the necessity might be 
called 'conditional necessity/ In 
explanations of phenomena, the law 
frequently is not known for certain, 
but is assumed as a supposition likely 
to be the right and proper one. If, 
for example, it is not known for 
certain that all men are mortal, — 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 13 I 

If all men are mortal, [Theory or 

Hypothesis] 
Dion (being a man) is mortal [Fact 

explained] 

shows that the necessity is condi- 
tional. 

22. In fine this logical or condi- 
tional necessity is the necessity by 
which Cause and Effect are con- 
nected in our minds. If a law is 
true, every instance under it is ne- 
cessarily in accordance with it. If 
the law of human nature, that all 
men are mortal, is true, it necessarily 
follows that you, he, and I are all 
and each of us mortal. If the law of 
gravitation, that all bodies approach 
when there is nothing to prevent 
them from doing so, is true, it neces- 
sarily follows that this stone will fall 
to the earth unless something pre- 
vent. And so with all other instances 
of causation. The necessity in every 



132 CHAPTER III. 

one of tliem is a logical or condi- 
tional necessity. 

23. The identity might be still 
further exhibited by a few compari- 
sons. In logic the conclusion, in 
the simplest syllogism, is true be- 
cause the major premiss is universal, 
because the middle term is dis- 
tributed. Similarly, in physical 
science the (so-called) effect takes 
place because the law under which 
it comes is universal. In logic, 
again, the conclusion is said to be 
contained in the premisses. In 
physical science, in the same way, 
all effects are contained in their so- 
called causes. By logic alone we 
cannot arrive at really new truths. 
We can merely unfold, what, were 
we keen-sighted enough, we could 
arrive at by intuition, immediately 
on the statement of the first prin- 



■■■ 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. I33 

ciples. So, in physical science. Not 
a single so-called ' explanation ' of 
phenomena does more than show 
that the phenomena are implied in 
the theories put forward. 

24. In short, the inferring of 
effects from laws, or of laws from 
phenomena, bears a close resem- 
blance to the working out of an equa- 
tion in algebra — the steps of which 
process are connected together by 
the necessity of implication or con- 
sistency. Laws and phenomena, 
causes and effects, are bound to- 
gether, in our minds, by precisely 
the same subjective necessity. * Nor 
can we imagine any other sort of 
necessity. We have never had ex- 
perience of any other kind, and there- 



* See Note xxi. 



134 CHAPTER III. 

fore can no more conceive of such 
than a man born blind can have 
ideas of colour. 

25. This at first sight seems para- 
doxical. The popular idea of a com- 
pulsion or necessity binding together 
causes and effects does not imme- 
diately appear to be resolvable into 
one of a mere subjective necessity. 
To this it may be replied that the 
popular idea is not always the correct 
idea. A true and scientific analysis 
of causation ought to consist rather 
of an exhibition of what the idea 
should be than of what it actually 
is. 

26. It is quite obvious that the 
idea oi necessary connection cannot 
be innate or intuitive. Whatever 
we believe about phenomena is based 
upon the observation of phenomena. 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 135 

The idea of causation arises in our 
minds upon witnessing the unifor- 
mity, &c, prevailing. If we had been 
born into a world of perfect chaos, 
we could never have believed in 
causation or in necessary connec- 
tion. 

27. The simplest idea of causa- 
tion, and probably the first arising 
in the mind, is that of mere inva- 
riability of conjunction. "We observe 
certain events so often associated 
with certain others, that we get to 
imagine a necessity of some sort 
(never clearly defined) as the bond 
of union. This is the crudest form 
of the idea, and the one, too, which 
is the easiest to be overcome. The 
more mysterious the necessity the 
more easily is it disbelieved in. In 
such cases the transition from causa- 
tion to ' mere coincidence/ or vice 



I36 CHAPTER III. 

versa, is more readily made by the 
mind than in other instances. 

28. For example, friction is said 
to cause ,heat. # In this case, we 
have simply one event (the rubbing 
together of two substances), followed 
by another (the evolution of heat) ; 
and the involved idea of necessity or 
causation is based merely on the 
observation of such sequence. The 
notion of necessity here is so far 
from being deeply rooted in our 
minds, that very little would be 
needed to dissipate it. One well- 
authenticated case of friction being 
followed by cold would be quite suffi- 
cient for that purpose. 

29. A similar instance of the idea 



* Example given by Powell : Nat. and Div. 
Truth, p. 88. 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 137 

occurs in the proposition, ' Heat 
causes expansion/ The notion of 
necessity here, is (among men of 
science, at least) even fainter than 
in the former example ; for in the 
case of water between 3 2° and 40 
Fahr. in temperature, heat is accom- 
panied by contraction. 

30. The truth is, that in such in- 
stances of reputed causation, phy- 
sicists would guard themselves by 
saying that the alleged cause is not 
properly the cause, but only part 
thereof. That the real cause is the 
sum of all the necessary antecedents. 
Thus friction is only one of the 
necessary antecedents of the heat 
evolved, and therefore merely a part 
of the cause. The same with heat 
being followed by expansion or con- 
traction. The heat is only part of 
the cause. If we knew the other 



IJ 8 CHAPTER III. 

parts (i.e. the other necessary ante- 
cedents), we should understand why 
heat is accompanied by expansion 
at one time and by contraction at 
another. 

31. At this point the idea of cau- 
sation enters a higher phase. The 
original popular notion of one cause 
to one effect passes into the correcter 
and more scientific theory of every 
effect being the result of many 
causes. This may be considered 
the view now generally prevalent 
among men of science. Indeed the 
word cause at this stage of progress 
generally disappears altogether. The 
term is apt to be misunderstood (it 
is argued) ; it is so greatly associated 
with metaphysical and theological 
speculations, that ideas entirely irre- 
levant, and sometimes mischievous, 
are imported into the calm stream 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 1 39 

of scientific investigation. Hence, 
men of science as a rule now prefer 
the term i conditions ' instead of 
6 causes.' Friction is called a con- 
dition or one of the conditions of 
heat, instead of a cause or one of 
the causes thereof. 

32. We will not stop to inquire 
whether the new term is not just as 
misleading in one way as the old 
word was in another. There are 
materialists or positivists whose use 
of the term condition fitly expresses 
their entire adherence to the theory 
of Hume (as given in the Treatise of 
Human Nature), that there is no ne- 
cessary connection between events 
— merely relation, co-incidence, 
sequence, &c. But in such cases 
the idea of causation (as usually 
understood) entirely disappears ; 



I40 CHAPTER III. 

hence further consideration hereof 
is beyond the limits of this inquiry. 
We must analyze the notion of cau- 
sality whilst that of necessity still 
forms an essential part of it. 

33. The idea of an event being 
the effect of more causes than one, 
bears an analogy to two or three 
other notions. For example, in 
mechanics, to a force being the re- 
sultant of various components ; and, 
in logic 9 to a proposition being the 
conclusion from various premisses. 
But the point which, as it seems to 
me, should be impressed above 
everything, is the similarity to logic : 
in other words, that, when pushed 
to a last analysis, we can discover 
nothing in the necessity between 
causes or effects besides a subjective 
or logical necessity — the necessity 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. I4I 

of consistency or implication. "We 
cannot even imagine any other kind. 
There is a latent feeling in our 
minds, on contemplating the opera- 
tions of nature, that if we only knew 
all the essential conditions or causes 
of a phenomenon we should be able 
to see the connection — the necessity 
of the connection — as clearly as we 
see the connection between the 
premisses and the conclusion of a 
syllogism. 

34. Besides this, the necessity is 
also conditional. That is to say, it 
depends on the assumption of the 
universality which we attribute to 
the laws, principles, theories or 
hypotheses which we lay down in 
order to explain phenomena. No 
one can tell absolutely that a law is 
universal ; but on the assumption 
of such universality, the occurrence 



142 CHAPTER III. 

of certain phenomena is explained 
by implication. 

35. We cannot for certain (e.g.) 
tell that the law of gravitation is 
universal. We cannot absolutely 
know that all the bodies in the 
universe, without a single exception, 
are attracted towards each other. 
But assuming that it is so by way 
of hypothesis, astronomical and ter- 
restrial phenomena are explained or 
deduced, just as a conclusion is 
drawn from premisses. The neces- 
sity connecting the cause and the 
effect is logical and at the same time 
conditional. Here we see the appli- 
cation of what has already been 
hinted at. # When it is said that 
gravitation is the cause of the attrac- 



# See ante, § 21. 



THE PKOBLEM SOLVED. 1 43 

tion between the earth and the moon, 
all that is meant is that one is a 
case or instance of the other ; thus, 

(If) all material bodies attract each 
other ; [Law of gravitation] 

(Then) the earth and moon (being 
material bodies) attract each 
other. [Phenomenon] 

36. The same thing may be seen 
in all other instances into which the 
idea of causality enters ; and perhaps 
in a greater degree. The explaining 
of the fall of bodies by pointing 
to the law of gravitation is so ex- 
tremely simple, that every one sees 
its nature directly. And for that 
reason it is, bij itself, scarcely an in- 
stance of the idea of causation. The 
more complicated the combination of 
laws (or premisses) the more hidden 
is the true nature of the necessity ; 
and, by a curious fallacy of the mind, 



144 CHAPTER III. 

the stronger the idea of an uncondi- 
tional necessary connection becomes. 
"When an effect is an instance merely 
of a single law, it is thought not so 
certain as when many laws form the 
premisses. That God should cause 
an event to happen contrary to one 
law, would be thought a slight 
miracle in comparison with the alte- 
ration of an event dependent on a 
combination of several laws.* 

37. For this reason the true idea 
of causality is perhaps better ex- 
hibited by taking examples from 
more complicated cases. We have 
seen that gravitation simply in itself; 
friction causing heat ; and such phe- 
nomena — are empiric as far as their 
raison d'etre is concerned. We do 



* See Note xxii. 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 1 45 

not know why material bodies should 
attract each other, or why friction 
should be accompanied by heat. And 
therefore we have little, if any, con- 
viction of necessity in relation to 
these cases. If on the other hand 
they could be referred to wider laws, 
our notion of necessity would be 
greater; if these again could be re- 
ferred to still wider, our impression 
of the necessity would be still 
stronger ; and so on. 

38. Although we have not any 
explanations of gravitation, friction 
causing heat, &c, we have neverthe- 
less the conviction of a conditional 
necessity regarding them. If we 
only knew all the circumstances the 
explanation would be complete. This 
we feel certain of. But to the un- 
philosophical mind, an explanation 
wanting, is equivalent to mystery. 



I46 CHAPTER III, 

It is for men of science to recognise 
that, as far as explanations go, all 
phenomena and all laws are on an 
absolute equality— none higher and 
none less ; and the necessity the 
same in all cases. That is, of course, 
viewing them subjectively ; in their 
relation to ourselves. What their 
relative importance may be intrin- 
sically and absolutely we have not 
the slightest knowledge. 

39. At first all observations are 
empirical. After a time, in the pro- 
gress of discovery, a phenomenon is 
found to bear a similarity to other 
phenomena ; and they are all classed 
together. This is the first step in 
' explanation. ' Further on, and 
the whole species is found to agree 
with another species. This is con- 
sidered a still more satisfactory ex- 
planation ; and after a time perhaps 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 1 47 

the whole germs is found to accord 
with another genus ; and so on. 
Every new discovery of similarity 
gives additional satisfaction to the 
mind in its search after uniformity. 
40. Baden Powell gives a good 
illustration of this.* ' When the 
' suspension of water in the pump 
' was first observed it was ascribed 
' to a cause called suction, and in the 
' then state of knowledge, it was not 
i only natural, but inductively cor- 
' rect, to ascribe so singular an effect 
' to a peculiar cause. It was appa- 
6 rently a case sui generis. The effect 
' was, perhaps, soon seen to be of 
' the same kind as the suspension 
6 of a stone by contact with the under 
' side of a wet leather ; there was 



Nat. and Div. Truth, p. 90. 

h2 



I48 CHAPTER III. 

' then one step taken in the process 
' of generalization, by referring both 
' to one common cause, still named 
' suction. Further, the discovery 
' of Torricelli referred the former 
' case to the pressure of the atmo- 
6 sphere ; and this was soon seen to 
' include the explanation of the latter 
' and all other analogous phenomena. 
6 And, finally, this was reduced under 
' the still more comprehensive law 
' of universal gravitation.' 

41. Much confusion of thought is 
occasioned by the use of abstract 
nouns ; and it would add greatly to 
scientific exactness were they all 
banished, and equivalent phrases 
used instead. Gravitation, suction, 
life, inherent principle, property, 
vitality, power, will, and countless 
other things, have at one time been, 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 1 49 

or still are, regarded as causes. Such 
explanations of phenomena really 
explain nothing. They are merely 
cloaks to cover our ignorance. Just 
think of it. Gravitation the cause 
of things gravitating. Suction the 
cause ' of sucking. Will the cause 
of volition. Do not such explana- 
tions, when divested of sophistical 
padding, dwindle down to these 
barren and absurd propositions ? 
Mr. Lewes has some excellent re- 
marks on this head. We might as 
well, he says, attribute the cause of 
a watch going to its ' watch force.' # 
42. Now, were all these abstract 
nouns translated into their (so to 
speak) concrete equivalents, their na- 
ture would appear in its true light. It 



* c Aristotle," chap. iv. § 72 b. 



150 CHAPTER III. 

would be seen that we know nothing 
of these things except empirically. 
That we know nothing of gravitation 
except that, as a matter of fact, 
material bodies gravitate. That we 
know nothing of life, except that 
living beings live. Of anything else 
we are profoundly ignorant. The 
more we learn of nature, the more 
we see there is to be known, and the 
more we become acquainted with 
our own ignorance. 

43. We shall see the real nature 
of the ' explanation ' of phenomena 
in the instance already given of the 
raising of water by a pump. In the 
first place that phenomenon was 
attributed to ' suction ' ; which was 
merely a way of saying that it was 
a case of a liquid being sucked up 
or raised. The rise of a liquid 
through a straw to the mouth was a 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 151 

phenomenon of the same species. 
Saying, therefore, that ' suction ' was 
a cause, only explained the event by 
a logical necessity. Thus — 

(If) under certain circumstances 
liquids rise [Major premiss] 

(Then,) the action of a pump involving 
such circumstances ; and water 
being a liquid ; [Minor premisses'] 

(It follows that) upon the action of 
a pump, the water rises. [Con- 
clusion] 

The explanation of the rise of the 
water by the maxim, 'Nature abhors 
a vacuum,' was similarly merely a 
logical deduction : — 

(If) Nature always provides against 
the possibility of a vacuum ; 
[Major] 

(Then) the way of providing against 
the existence of a vacuum in a 
pump, being therise of the water, 
[Minor] 

(It follows that) the water rises in a 
pump. [Conclusion] 



152 CHAPTEE III. 

44. The second step was made 
on the discovery that water could 
not be raised by a pump, as a rule, 
to a greater height than 32 or 33 feet, 
sometimes not higher than 3 1 feet, 
and very seldom above 34 feet. 
This showed the falsity of the hypo- 
thesis (or major premiss) that vacua 
do not exist in nature. The philo- 
sophers of the period had accordingly 
to search for another explanation 
(i.e. find another 'middle term'). 
Galileo's solution of the difficulty, 
namely, that nature abhorred a 
vacuum only to the extent of 23 f ee U 
did not altogether sound satisfac- 
tory; and Torricelli was set thinking 
and experimenting to find out a 
more likely ' middle term/ This 
at length was found ; and the whole 
species, suetiones, was seen to belong 
to the genus equilibria. Phenomena 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 1 53 

of equilibrium, in their turn, are 
deducible from still wider laws or 
hypotheses in mechanics ; — to speak 
logically, they are deducible from 
more general major-premisses; — to 
speak the language of naturalists, 
they belong to still higher genera. 

45, And so with all other phe- 
nomena. Every so-called effect is 
explained by showing its inference 
from some law or hypothesis. And 
many hypotheses are, in their turn, 
referable, in the same manner, to 
wider generalizations or genera/" 
The further this process can go, 
the greater is the satisfaction to our 
minds — the firmer is our idea of 
the stability and invariableness of 
the phenomenon. This is the true 
' necessary connection ' between 



* See Note xxii. § 2. 

h8 



154 CHAPTER III. 

cause and effect. It is logical ne- 
cessity — the necessity of implication. 
Of any other kind of necessity we 
have no knowledge, and, indeed, 
not the slightest conception.. We 
can only imagine what we have 
experienced; and the analysis of 
causality has shown that the ne- 
cessity we attribute to events is 
altogether subjective — the develop- 
ment of logical consistency and of 
nothing else. 

46. In conclusion, there is one 
important corollary to be men- 
tioned which cannot be too strongly 
impressed on all — scientific and 
unscientific alike. It is the ' con- 
ditionalness,' or ' hypotheticalness,' 
of all laws. We arrive at these 
'major premisses' by generalization ; 
and, as none of us are omniscient, 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 1 55 

it follows that we never know abso- 
lutely the truth of a single law of 
the inductive sciences. The im- 
portance of knowing this little fact 
can scarcely be overrated. In these 
days of much superficial cramming 
of scientific facts and theories, there 
is constantly a danger, unless the 
science be accompanied with philo- 
sophy, of our getting false ideas of 
what is possible or impossible — and 
a tendency to dogmatise when w T e 
have least reason for doing so. A 
deep feeling on our part that all our 
science * is really nothing but a 
collection and classification of iso- 
lated but analogous facts — and that 
anything beyond this is outside the 



* i.e. inductive science. I do not, of course, 
include the mathematical or the sciences of 
the ^conditioned. 



156 CHAPTER III. 

limits of our knowledge (at least as 
those limits at present are) — ought 
to teach us how emphatically super- 
ficial even our deepest discoveries 
are, and how infinitesimal is our 
knowledge of the marvellous secrets 
and vast resources of nature. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III. 



NOTES XVI. TO XXII. 



APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III. 
XQTE XVI. 

(Referred to in § 10.) 
ORIGIN OF BELIEF IX CAUSES. 

1 There are two doctrines, which 
' appear to represent different stages 
' of civilization. 

1 According to the first doctrine, 
6 every event is single and isolated, 
1 and is merely considered as the 
1 result of a blind chance. This 
' opinion, which is most natural to 
' a perfectly ignorant people, would 
1 soon be weakened by that exten- 
' sion of experience which supplies 
' a knowledge of those uniformities 
' of succession and of co-existence 
' that nature constantly presents. 

' If, for example, wandering tribes, 
' without the least tincture of civil- 
1 ization, lived entirely by hunting 



l6o APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 

1 and fishing, they might well sup- 
6 pose that the appearance of their 
' necessary food was the result of 
' some accident which admitted of 
6 no explanation. The irregularity 
' of the supply, and the apparent 
' caprice with which it was some- 
1 times abundant and sometimes 
6 scanty, would prevent them from 

* suspecting anything like method 
' in the arrangements of nature ; 
' nor could their minds even con- 
6 ceive the existence of those general 
' principles which govern the order 
' of events, and by a knowledge of 
1 which we are often able to predict 

* their future course. 

' But when such tribes advance 
' into the agricultural state, they, 
' for the first time, use a food of 
' which not only the appearance, 
' but the very existence, seems to 
' be the result of their own act. 
' What they sow, that likewise do 
' they reap. The provision neces- 
' sary for their wants is brought 

* more immediately under their own 
' control, and is more palpably the 
' consequence of their own labour. 



NOTE XVI. l6l 

' They perceive a distinct plan, and 
' a regular uniformity of sequence, 
' in the relation which the seed they 
' put into the ground bears to the 
' corn when arrived at maturity. 
' They are now able to look to the 
6 future, not indeed with certainty, 
' but with a confidence infinitely 
' greater than they could have felt 
' in their former and more precarious 
6 pursuits. Hence there arises a dim 
' idea of the stability of events ; and 
' for the first time there begins to 
' dawn upon the mind a faint con- 
' ception of what at a later period 
6 are called the Laws of Nature. 

' Every step in the great progress 
' will make their view of this more 
' clear. As their observations ac- 
1 cumulate, and as their experience 
' extends over a wider surface, they 
' meet with uniformities that they 
1 had never suspected to exist, and 
' the discovery of which weakens 
' that doctrine of chance with which 
' they had originally set out. 

' Yet a little further, and a taste 
' for abstract reasoning springs up ; 
' and then some among them gene- 



1 62 APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 

' ralize the observations that have 
' been made, and, despising the old 
' popular opinion, believe that every 
' event is linked to its antecedent 
' by an inevitable connexion ; that 
' such antecedent is connected with 
' a preceding fact; and that thus 
' the whole world forms a necessary 
' chain, in which indeed each man 
' may play his part, but can by no 
6 means determine what that part 
' shall be. 

' Thus it is that, in the ordinary 
' march of society, an increasing per- 
' ception of the regularity of nature 
' destroys the doctrine of Chance, 
' and replaces it by that of Necessary 
' Connexion/ — Buckle. # 



# History of Civilization, 3rd ed. vol. i. 
pp. 8—9. 



NOTE XVII. 163 



NOTE XVII. 

(Referred to in § 11.) 
THE LAW OF CONSISTENCY. 

' It is a fundamental requisite of 
reasoning, as well as of communi- 
cation by speech, that what is 
affirmed in one form of words shall 
be affirmed in another. 

1 Language often contains equi- 
valent expressions for the same 
fact. There are synonymous names 
as "round," "circular"; a round 
thing is the same as a circular 
thing. ' ' Matter is heavy, " " matter 
gravitates," are the same fact in 
different words ; if the one is true, 
so is the other, by virtue of mere 
consistency. 

' " All matter is heavy, therefore 
any one piece of matter is heavy," 
is called a necessary inference. A 
more exact designation would be 



164 APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 

6 an equivalent, implicated, or self- 
6 consistent assertion.' — Bain.* 

' In common speech, " necessity " 
' is a synonym of certainty ; and 
' would apply to inductive truths. . . 

' " Necessity " more properly 
' means implication ; " necessary 
' truths " in this sense are the 
' truths demanded by Consistency. 
' Their denial is a contradiction in 
' terms. . . . 

' A third meaning and criterion 
6 of Necessity, is inconceivability of 
' the opposite.' — Bain.I 



* Logic, Introd., art 21. 
f Logic, b. ii. chap. v. arts. 3 — 6. See also 
the following Note. ^° 



NOTE XVIII. 165 



NOTE XVIII. 

(Eef erred to in Note xvii.) 
MEANING OF NECESSITY. 

' Necessity (ne and cesso, that 
' which cannot cease). — I have one 
' thing to observe of the several 
' kinds of necessity, that the idea of 
' some sort of firm connection runs 
' through them all : — and that is the 
' proper general import of the name. 
' Connection of mental or verbal 
' propositions, or of their respective 
1 parts, makes up the idea of " logi- 
' cal " necessity, — connection of end 
1 and means makes up the idea of 
' " moral' ' necessity, — connection of 
1 causes and effects is " physical " 
' necessity, — and connection of ex- 
( istence and essence is "metaphy- 
' sical " necessity.' — Watekland. * 



# Works, vol. iv. p. 432. Quoted by Dr. 
Fleming, Vocab. Phil. 2nd ed. p. 342. 



1 66 APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 

' If necessity do concern things 
' in themselves, necessity is yet no 
' predicate of a thing, any farther 
' than it expresses a certain quality 
' of our conceptions regarding the 
' existence of the thing. In fine, 
' necessity lies not so much in the 
' objective reality as in the subjective 
' mind. 

6 To illustrate this doctrine by an 
' example taken from the science of 
' magnitude. That the three interior 
' angles of every triangle are equal 
' to two right angles, is a truth 
' which, if the demonstration has 
' been followed, cannot but be be- 
' lieved, when the subject is thought 
' on. It is therefore pronounced 
' a necessary truth.' — W. H. Gil- 
lespie." 

6 Most persons are familiar with 
' the distinction of necessary and con- 
' tingent truths. The former kind 
' are truths which cannot but be 
' true ; as that 19 and 1 1 are 30 ; — 



* Exam, of AntitJicos, part i. §§ 64 — 65. 



NOTE XIX. 167 

1 that parallelograms upon the same 
' base and between the same parallels 
' are equal ; — that all the angles in 
' the same segment of a circle are 
' equal. The latter are truths which 
6 it happens (contingit) are true ; but 
' which, for anything which we can 
' see, might have been otherwise/ 
— Whewell."* 



NOTE XIX. 

(Referred to in § 16.) 
EXTRACT FROM HAMILTON. 

6 When a fact is generalized, our 
' discontent is quieted, and we con- 
' sider the generality itself as tan- 
' tamount to an explanation. Why 
' does this apple fall to the ground ? 
' Because all bodies gravitate to- 
' wards each other. Arrived at this 
' general fact, we inquire no more, 



* Hist. Scien, Ideas, part i. b. i. chap. i. § 2. 



105 APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 

' although ignorant now as pre- 
' viously of the cause of gravitation ; 
'for gravitation is nothing more 
' than a name for a general fact, the 
4 " why " of which we know not.' — 
Lectures, i. p. 71. 



NOTE XX. 

(Referred to in § 17.) 
MEANING OF < LAW.' 

1. ' The word Law expresses the 
' constant and regular order accord- 
' ing to which an energy or agent 
6 operates.' — Fleming : Vocal. Phil 
p. 286. 

2. ' It is a perversion of language 
' to assign any law, as the efficient, 
' operative cause of anything. A 
' law presupposes an agent ; for it is 
4 only the mode, according to which 
' an agent proceeds : it implies a 
' power ; for it is the order, accord- 
' ing to which that power acts. 



NOTE XX. 169 

' Without this agent, without this 
' power, which are both distinct from 
' itself, the law does nothing, is 
' nothing.' — Paley : Nat. Tlieol., 
ch. i. § 7. 

3. ' Those who go about to attri- 
' bute the origination of mankind 
' (or any other effect) to a bare order 
6 or law of nature, as the primitive 
' effecter thereof, speak that which 
' is perfectly irrational and unintel- 
' ligible ; for although a law or rule 
' is the method and order by which 
' an intelligent being may act, yet a 
' law or rule or order is a dead, un- 
' active, uneffective thing of itself.' — 
Hale : Prim. Orig., ch. vii. § 4.* 

4. ' The first point to be noted 
6 in regard to what is called the 
' uniformity of the course of nature, 
' is, that it is itself a complex fact, 
' compounded of all the separate 
' uniformities which exist in respect 



# Quoted by Dr. Fleming : Vocal. Phil., 
p. 286. 



I 



17O APPENDIX TO CHAP. Til. 

' to single phenomena. These vari- 
' ous uniformities, when ascertained 
' by what is regarded as a sufficient 
( induction, we call in common par- 
' lance, Laws of Nature/ — Mill : 
System of Logic, b. iii. ch. iv. § i. 

5. ' The problem of Inductive 
' Logic may be summed up in two 
' questions : how to ascertain the 
' laws of nature ; and how, after 
' having ascertained them, to follow 
' them into their results. On the 
' other hand, we must not suffer 
' ourselves to imagine that this mode 
' of statement amounts to a real 
' analysis, or to anything but a mere 
' verbal transformation of the pro- 
' blem ; for the expression, Laws of 
' Nature, means nothing but the 
' uniformities which exist among 
' natural phenomena, when reduced 
' to their simplest expression.' — 
Mill : ib. 

6. ' If the explaining a phaeno- 
' menon be to assign its proper 
* efficient and final cause, it should 
' seem the mechanical philosophers 
' never explained anything ; their 



NOTE XX. 171 

' province being only to discover the 
' laws of nature, that is, the general 
' rules and methods of motion, and 
6 to account for particular phseno- 
' mena by reducing them under, or 
6 shewing their conformity to such 
6 general rules.' — Berkeley, Siris, 
§ 2 3 u 

7. ' It may be that some proud and 
' rash generalisation of the schools 
' is having its falsehood proved by 
* the violence it does to the deepest 
6 instincts of our spiritual nature. . . 
' Such, for example, is the conclu- 
' sion to which the language of 
' some scientific men is evidently 
' pointing, that great general Laws 
' inexorable in their operation, and 
6 causes in endless chain of inva- 
6 riable sequence, are the governing 
' powers in Nature, and they leave 
' no room for any special direction 
■ or providential ordering of events. 
' If this be true, it is vain to deny 
' its bearing on religion. What, 
6 then, can be the use of prayer ? 
' Can Laws hear us ? . . . . 

4 The conception of Natural Laws, 

i2 



172 



APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 



which involves us in such ques- 
tions, and points to such con- 
clusions, demands surely a very 
careful examination at our 
hands. 

' What, then, is this reign of 
Law ? What is Law, and in what 
sense can it be said to reign ? 

' Words, w r hich should be the 
servants of thought, are too often 
its masters ; and there are very 
few words which are used more 
ambiguously, and therefore more 
injuriously, than the word Law. . . . 
There are at least five different 
senses in which Law is habitually 
used, and these must be carefully 
distinguished : — 

' First, We have Law as applied 
simply to an observed order of 
facts. 

' Secondly, To that order as in- 
volving the action of some force or 
forces, of which nothing more may 
be known. 

' Thirdly, As applied to individual 
forces the measure of whose opera- 
tion has been more or less defined 
or ascertained. 



NOTE XX. 173 

6 Fourthly, As applied to those 
' combinations of force which have 
' reference to the fulfilment of pur- 
' pose, or the discharge of function. 

' Fifthly, As applied to abstract 
' conceptions of the mind — not 
' corresponding with any actual phe- 
1 nomena, but deduced therefrom 
' as axioms of thought necessary 
' to our understanding of them.' — 
Duke of Argyll : Reign of Lcav, 
chap. ii. 

' 8. An observed order of facts 
' to be entitled to the rank of a Law 
' must be an order so constant and 
' uniform as to indicate necessity.' — 
Duke of Argyll : ib. 

9. ' The phrase Laivs of Nature 
' may be understood to imply (1) 
* that Nature is uniform, and (2) 
6 that this uniformity is a plurality 
' and not a unity. There are sepa- 
' rate departments, each with its 
4 own uniformities or laws.' — Bain : 
Logic, b. iii. c. ii. § 2. 



174 APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 

NOTE XXI. 

(Referred to in § 24.) 
GRAVITATION. 

1. Gravitation is a remarkable 
instance of implication — remarkable 
because it is popularly supposed to 
be the most stringent and powerful 
of all 'causes.' It will therefore 
exemplify the better the logicalness 
and conditionalness of the ' ne- 
cessity.' The law of gravity states 
that all material bodies attract one 
another directly as the mass and 
inversely as the square of the dis- 
tance. Now what are ' material 
bodies ' ? No definition can be given 
except this, that they are things 
which attract one another in that 
way. The law of gravitation is 
therefore implied in the very defi- 
nition of a material body. 

2. Possibly this is hypercritical. 
It may be contended that there 
are a variety of things (objects of 
thought) in the universe — stones, 



NOTE XXI. 175 

trees, houses, light, heat, electricity, 
mind, gas, &c. ; that a common 
property of attraction is found to 
dwell in a large class, which, for 
the sake of convenience, is desig- 
nated matter. Is not this discovery 
concerning so large a class an im- 
portant truth — a really new truth ? 
And, moreover, it may be asked, 
were not material bodies classed 
together long before gravitation was 
discovered ? Perhaps so ; and per- 
haps, on the other hand, the quality 
(openly stated or tacitly assumed) 
deemed essential to matter before the 
law of gravity was scientifically for- 
mulated, was really nothing but 
gravitation in another form. 



176 APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 

NOTE XXII. 
EXTRACTS FROM BADEN POWELL. 

1. 

(Referred to in § 36.) 

[The intimate union which we 
imagine to exist between cause and 
effect] ' is no other than that of the 
6 particular individual case with the 
' more general law : of that law 
' with some still more comprehen- 
' sive principle : and, of this, again, 
' in its turn, with some yet more 
' universal theory : thus establishing 
' not merely sequences but reasons, 
' not merely connexions but expla- 
1 nations. . . . 

' If further confirmation of this 
' view of the matter be wanting, we 
' may find it in observing the de- 
' pendence which the strength of our 
' impression of an intimate causality 
' always has upon the extent to 
' which we trace the series of com- 
' binations of laws and principles. 



NOTE XXII. 177 

' The force of the persuasion we 
' entertain of causation varies with 
' the different degrees in which 

* the relations of physical laws 
' are more or less general, more or 

* less widely ramified and dependent 
6 one on another, more or less con- 
' nected with high general prin- 
' ciples and comprehensive theories. 
' Our impression of the idea of an 
' efficient cause is much weaker, for 
' instance, in the case of friction 
6 and heat, than in that of gravi- 
' tation and elliptic orbits, or 
' tides. 

6 Suppose we should hear it re- 
' ported that some substance had 
' been found in which no violence 
1 of friction would produce heat ; in 
1 estimating its probability prior to 
' evidence of the fact, I believe no 
6 truly philosophic inquirer would 
' reject it as a violation of the order 
' of natural causes. But suppose 
' it should be rumoured that a new 
' planet were discovered, but that it 
' did not move in an elliptic orbit ; 
' I imagine this circumstance would 
6 cast suspicion on the credit of the 
' whole statement, in the minds of 

1 3 



178 APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. 

' all who understood the nature 
' of gravitation. . . . 

' So firm is our persuasion of the 
' uniformity of nature, that we can- 
' not bring ourselves to believe in 
' the capricious violation even of 
6 one of her laws ; we, therefore, are 
' prone to regard the violation of 
' several in succession, as absolutely 
' contradictory and impossible.'— 
The Connexion of Natural and Divine 
Truth, pp. 104—6. 



(Referred to in § 45.) 

' Thus the consideration of a real 
' cause, in fact, involves the con- 
; nexion of one train of causes with 
' another. The cause is shown to 
' apply independently to one set of 
' phenomena ; we refer another class 
' to the same class. Thus we en- 
4 large our ideas of the connexion of 
' physical phenomena ; we trace not 
' only one series of causes and 



NOTE XXII. 179 

' effects, but many, and these not 
' independent, but united by common 
' principles. We perceive a union 
' between extended orders of facts. 
6 We find not merely one relation 
' established, but a communication 
' opened, as it were, with a vast 
' range of such relations ; and many 
' such channels of communication, 
' widely ramifying in all directions. 5 
— lb. p. 102. 



%* To those who have favoured me with 
a perusal of the chapter to which this appen- 
dix belongs, the similarity between the view 
of causation there expressed and that advo- 
cated in Mr. Powell's writings may seem to 
amount almost to identity. Were there no 
such phenomenon as volition, the similarity, 
would be still greater. But it has already 
been pointed out (p. 82) that Baden Powell 
treated the phenomena of voluntary actions in 
a different manner from the way in which he 
dealt with other events : a distinction for 
which, I confess, I cannot see any sound 
reason, 



INDEX. 



i8 3 



INDEX. 



A. 

Abercrombie, John, M.D., 

Intellectual Powers, 13. 
Abstract nouns, 

confusion caused by, 148. 

concrete equivalents of, 149. 
Acids, 77. 
Alchymists, 28. 
Algebra, 133. 
Alkali, 77, 

Animal kingdom, 98. 
Annihilation, 

Sir W. Hamilton on, 77. 

Hegel on, 88. 



184 INDEX. 

Apodeictic, 

contingent experiences not, I 

universal causation not, 9. 
Approximations to Truth, 13. 
A priori argument, 6. 
Argyll, Duke of, 

The Reign of Law, 13. 

has done good service, 91. 

on Kepler's Laws, 96. 

his analysis of law, 128. 

five senses of law, 172. 
Aristotle, 13. 
Astrologers, 28. 
Astronomers, 28. 
Atheism, 87. 

arguments for, 115. 
Atkinson, H. G., viii. 

and Martineau's Letters, 13. 

on causation, 41. 

quoted, 86. 

on truth, 89. 

on power, 89. 



INDEX. 185 

Atkinson, continued — 
on Dr. Brown, 90. 
on law, 94. 
on Mr. Grove, 100. 
his opinion, 103. 

B. 

Bacon, 14. 

the time of, 27. 

quoted by Mr. Atkinson, 86. 

medium between bodies, 90. 

on individual bodies, 96. 
Bain, Alex., LL.D., 

Dedication to, v. 

mentioned, 4. 

Mental and Moral Science, 14. 

Logic, 14. 

has treated of Causation, 26. 

adopts Mill's definition, 8 ^. 

a distinction of, 56. 

uniformity of nature, 63. 

conservation of force, 80. 



100 INDEX. 

Bain, continued — 

his opinion, 104. 

Law of Consistency, 122. 

nature of law, 128. 

consistency, 163. 

on Necessity, 164. 
Barrow, Dr., 47. 
Bayle, 14. 
Beattie, 14. 

has treated of causation, 26. 

meaning of cause, 33. 

on common sense, 35. 

and Kant, 37. 

and Baden Powell, 41. 

an opponent of Hume, 53. 

vehement ditto, 58. 

his opinions, 103. 
Berkeley, Bishop, 14. 

Hume on, 35. 

Divinity of causation, 42. 

a predecessor of Hume, 50. 

and Locke, 52. 



INDEX. 187 

Berkeley, continued — 

his opinions, 104. 

explanation of phenomena, 170. 
Billiard-balls, impulse of, 30. 

Mr. Lewes on, 64. 
Biran, Maine de, 106. 
Bledsoe, Prof., 114. 
Bray, Chas., 14. 

Mr. Atkinson on, 89. 
Brougham, Lord, 14. 

on Hume, 58. 
Brown, Dr. T., 14. 

has treated of causation, 26. 

and Dugald Stewart, 38. 

Comte, and Mansel, 41. 

his doctrine, 56. 

Mr. Atkinson on, 90. 

his opinions, 104. 
Buchner, 14. 
Buckle, H. T., 

History of Civilization, 14. 

his opinion on causation. 107. 



105 INDEX. 

Buckle, continued — 

origin of belief in causes, 159. 

on Necessary Connection, 162. 
Butler, Bishop, 14. 

on causes and effects, 48. 



C. 

Causation, passim. 

Universality of, not apodeictic, ( 
do. Brown on, 38. 

do. Stewart on, 38. 

Moral, 85. 

Physical, 85. 

What is it really ? 103. 

Is it universal ? 105. 

How is the idea produced ? 106. 

Is it a necessary truth ? 106. 

origin of belief in, 159. 
Cause, First, 5. 
Causes, moral, 41. 

physical, 41. 



INDEX. 

Causes, continued — 

and effects, nexus between, 104. 

secondary, 125. 
Chalybaus, 15. 

Quotation from, 108. 
Chameleon, The, 68. 
Chance, 

fate and, 27. 

savages belief in, 121. 

uniformity, 129. 

Buckle on, 162. 
Chemistry, 28. 
Civilized nations, 121. 
Clarke, Samuel, 15. 
Cogito, ergo sum, 91. 
Cognitive faculty, 108. 
Collins, Anthony, 15. 
Collocation of circumstances, 81. 
Colour, 134. 
Comte, 15. 

Brown and Mansel, 41. 

on seeking causes, 88. 



19° INDEX, 

Comte, continued — 

Mr. Atkinson on, 89. 

his views, 104. 
Combustion, 70. 
Conditions, 126. 

the term used for 'causes,' 139. 
Consistency, Law of, 122. 

Bain on, 163. 
Contingent experiences, 8. 
Creation, 76. 
Cricket-ball, flight of, 83. 

D. 

Day not the cause of night, 32, 

alluded to by Mill, 73. 
Deity in relation to causation, 

Malebranche on, 42. 

Berkeley on, 51. 

Hume on, 57. 

Hamilton on, 76. 

Dugald Stewart on, 101. 

Leibnitz on, 104. 



INDEX. igi 

Demonstration, 8. 
Denial and doubt, 58. 
Design Argument, 6. 

E. 

Earth on elephant theory, 7. 

alluded to by Mr. Atkinson, 90. 
Elasticity, 83. 
Electricity, 126. 
Empiric knowledge, 144. 

the first stage in science, 146. 
Equilibrium, 153. 
Existence, permanence of, 76. 
Expansion by heat, 137. 
Explanation of phenomena, the, 

Berkeley on, 50. 

often a covering for ignorance, 126. 

what it is, 133. 

illustration of, 150. 

F. 
Fatalism, 115. 
Fate, 27. 



192 INDEX. 

Fleming, Dr., quoted, 99. 

on Kant, 109. 

on Law, 168. 
Force, 

Bain on, 41. 

conservation of, 80. 

Mr. Grove on, 100. 

synonyms of, 119. 

popularly imputed to Law, 127. 

as a resultant, 140. 
Forces, 

Berkeley on, 51. 

in mechanics, 140. 
Fowler on miracles, 16. 
Freewill, 

necessity versus, 27. 

Mr. Atkinson on, 87. 

arguments for, 115. 
Friction, 

said to cause heat, 136. 

called a condition of heat, 139. 

accompanied by heat, 145. 



INDEX. 193 

Future resembling the past, 30. 

G. 

Genus, 

a relative term, 93. 

of phenomena, 147. 
Genera, 153. 

Gillespie, Mr. W. H., xxiii., 5, 166. 
Glanvill, 26. 

a predecessor of Hume, 28. 

Scepsis Scientifica, 49. 
Gravitation, 

law of, 96. 

phenomena of, 125. 

misconception concerning, 127. 

Is it universal ? 142. 

instanced, 143. 

Baden Powell on, 148. 

very little known of, 150. 

Hamilton on, 168. 

an instance of implication, 174. 
Grouping of opinions, Curious, 60. 



194 INDEX. 

Grove, Mr. W. R., ioo. 

H. 

Hamilton, Sir W., 16. 

mentioned, 26. 

on matter, 40. 

his theory of causation, 75. 

Bain on, 81. 

his views, 104. 

extract from, 167. 
Heat, 

caused by friction, 136. 

friction a condition of, 139. 

friction accompanied by, 145. 
Hegel, 88. 
Hobbes, 16. 

and Bacon, 27. 

a predecessor of Hume, 28. 

extract from Tripos, 49. 

on the medium between bodies, 90. 
Hume, 16. 

on the ideas of power, force, &c, 25. 



INDEX. 195 

Hume, continued — 

Was he the originator of the dis- 
cussion ? 26. 

Hobbes, Glanvill, and Malebranche 
preceded him, 28. 

his paradoxical style, 29. 

his Theory briefly stated, ib. 

his reply to objectors, 34. 

his elimination of synonyms, 35. 

his opponents, ib. 

his first antagonists, 36. 

Whewell's reply to him, 37. 

Brown and Stewart's concessions 
to his doctrine, 38. 

his definition modified by Mill, 40. 

Baden Powell on, 41. 

his predecessors, 47. 

and Berkeley, 50. 

and Locke, 51. 

disagreement concerning his theory, 

53- 

his two theories, ib. 

k2 



196 INDEX. 

Hume, continued — 

1 Treatise of Human Nature,' 53. 

' Inquiry concerning Human Under- 
standing,' ib. 

the difference between his two pub- 
lications, 54. 

his Essays-theory, 55. 

his Treatise-theory, 57. 

Lord Brougham on, 58. 

Mr. Lewes on, 61. 

on Power, 88. 

Mr. Atkinson on, 89. 

his idea of sequence, 91. 

his doctrine thought by Stewart to 
be favourable to theism, 101. 

his views tabulated, 103. 

Chalybaus on, 107. 

Kant's use of his theory, ib. 

his definition, 116. 

Mr. Mill on, 117. 

his synonyms of causality, 119. 

on necessary connection, 123. 



INDEX. 197 

Hume, continued — 

his half-truth, 124. 

his theory adopted by positivists, 

139- 

Huxley, Professor, 16. 
Hypotheses, assumption of, 141. 

in mechanics, 153. 

explanation by, ib. 

explanation of, ib. 
Hypotheticalness of Laws, 154. 



I. 

Ignition, 70. 
Inductive Science, 155. 
Infants, observation by, 65. 
Ingleby, CM., viii. 

his i Introduction to Metaphysic,' 
16. 
Inherent principles, 

Mr. Atkinson on, 97. 

regarded as causes, 148. 



198 INDEX. 

Intelligence, cause of, 7. 

Gillespie on, 20. 
Intuition, 

Reid and Beattie on, 36. 

Glanvill on, 49. 

and logic, 132. 
Intuitive belief in causation, 38. 
Intuitive conviction concerning the 

future, 63. 
Iron, oxidation of, 70. 
Irons, Dr., 16. 

j- 

Johnson, Dr., 116. 

K. 

Kaimes, Lord, 17. 
Kant, 

his Critique of Pure Reason, 17. 

on causation, 33. 

Reid, Beattie, and Whewell, 37. 



INDEX. 199 

Kant, continued — 

his views tabulated, 104. 

his use of Hume's doctrine, 107. 

Chalybaus on, 108. 

Whewell and Fleming on, 109. 
Kepler's Laws, 

an Order of Facts, 96c 

particular, 98. 



Law, 

discussion on, 87. 
independent of power, 91. 
natural, 92. 
of nature, ib. 
mortality a, 93. 
the term relative, ib. 
Atkinson on, 95. 
a general fact, 96. 
the reign of, ib. 
fixity of, 97. 



200 INDEX. 

Law, continued — 

Dr. Fleming on, 99. 

of action, ib. 

or principle, 100. 

Mill on, 128. 

a name for generalizations, ib. 

does not involve necessity, 129. 

necessity flowing from a, ib. 

of gravitation, 131. 
miracle, contrary to, 144. 
meaning of, 168. 
Paley on, 169. 
Duke of Argyll on, 172. 
of gravity, 174. 
Laws, 

physical, 91. 

of Nature, 93. 

or generalizations, 94. 

within laws, ib. 

an ascertained regularity, ib. 

of gravity, ib. 

Mr. Atkinson on, 95. 



INDEX. 201 

Laws, continued — 
Kepler's, 96. 
particular, ib. 
Bacon on, ib. 
not abstractions, 97. 
uniformities, ib. 
that apply only to planets, 98. 
merely regularity, ib. 
of existence, ib. 

rules or inherent principles ? 99. 
inferring effects from, 133. 
and phenomena, ib. 
and hypotheses, 141. 
several, infraction of, 144. 
wider, 145. 

none higher and none less, 146. 
in mechanics, 153. 
the conditionalness or hypothetical- 

ness of all, 154. 
of the inductive sciences, 155. 
Hale on, 169. 
Mill on, 170. 

k 3 



202 INDEX. 

Laws, continued — 

Berkeley on, 171. 

Duke of Argyll on, 172. 

Bain on, 173. 

Baden Powell on, 176. 
Leibnitz, 17. 

on the divinity of causes, 42. 

his views tabulated, 104. 
Lewes, G. H., 

Dedication to, v. 

his ' History of Philosophy,' 17. 

on the universality of causation, 22. 

quoted, 29. 

on causation, 33. 

mentioned, 39. 

quotes Glanvill, 49. 

on Hume, 61. 

on power involved in causal act 
62. 

on future resembling past, 63. 

on custom or habit, 64. 

on motion of billiard-balls, 65. 



INDEX, 203 

Lewes, continued — 

on experience (of sugar, e.g.), 66, 

criticised, 67. 

on causation as a relation, 70. 

his views tabulated, 103. 

on i watch-force,' 128. 

on the abuse of abstract nouns, 148. 
Locke, 17. 

a predecessor of Hume, 51. 

Berkeleian sentiment of, 52. 

on the origin of the idea of cause, 
106. 
Logic, 

treatises of, 26. 

and physics compared, 132, 

cannot give us really new truths, ib. 

and intuition, ib. 

and causation, 140. 
Logical necessity, 

the primary idea of necessity, 122. 

illustrated, 130. 

or conditional necessity, 131. 



204 INDEX. 

Logical necessity, continued — 
or subjective necessity, 140. 
the nexus in causation, 142. 



M. 

McCosh, Dr., 17. 
Malebranche, 17. 

a predecessor of Hume, 28. 

on the divinity of causation, 42. 

mentioned, 102. 

his views tabulated, 104. 
Mansel, Dr., 

Comte and Brown, 42. 

his views tabulated, 104. 
Materialists, 139. 
Mathematics, 8. 

unconditional, 155. 
Matter, 8. 

indestructibility of, 40. 

passiveness of, 52. 

Hamilton on, 79. 



INDEX. 205 

Matter, continued — 

inherent property of, 83. 

Mr. Atkinson on, 86. 
Mechanics, 

forces in, 140. 

hypotheses in, 153. 
Middle term, 152. 
Mill, J. S., 

Dedication to, v. 

mentioned, 4. 

' System of Logic,' 18. 

his modification of Hume's 
definition, 40. 

on causation, 73. 

on Hamilton, 79. 

his views, 103. 

criticised, 117. 

on Law, 128. 

on the laws of nature, 169. 
Mind, 86. 
Moral causes, 41. 

Baden Powell on, 85. 



206 INDEX. 

Motion, Locke on, 51. 

Baden Powell on, 84. 
Muscles, 84. 

N. 

Nature, Uniformity of, 

Bain on the, 63. 

Mill on the, 173. 
' Nature abhors a vacuum,' 151. 
Necessary truth, 63. 
Necessary connection, 134, et passim. 
Necessitarianism, 28. 
Necessity, passim. 

Philosophical, 27. 

Subjective, 133, 134, 140, et 
cceteroqui. 

Logical. See ' Logical necessity. 
Neil, Mr. S., viii. 
Nerves, 84. 

Newman, Professor, 6. 
Newton, Sir Isaac, 90. 



INDEX. 207 

Nihilo nihil, Ex, 76. 

Nouns, abstract, cause of error, 148. 



O. 

Observation, 

by infants, 65. 

of phenomena, 134. 
Oxidation of iron, 70. 
Oxygen and the metals, 70. 



Participles of time, 119. 
Physical causes, 41. 

Baden Powell on, 85. 
Physical Science, 132. 

See also i Inductive Science.' 
Positivists, 139. 
Powell, Baden, 4. 

mentioned, 26. 

his view of causation, 41. 



208 INDEX. 

Powell, continued — 

his distinction between moral and 
physical causation, 82. 

his opinions tabulated, 103. 

his illustration of discovery, 147. 

Extracts from, 176. 

on voluntary actions, 179. 
Price, Dr., 107. 
Priestley, 19. 



R. 

Ragg, Thos., 19 
Reid, Dr., 26. 

on causation, 33. 

and Beattie, 35. 

and Kant, 37. 

and Baden Powell, 41. 

Lewes on, 63. 

Mill on, 73. 

his views tabulated, 103. 

on invariable succession, 117. 



INDEX. 209 

Reign of Law, 173. 
Relativity of law, &c, 93. 

S. 

Savage races, 121. 
Schoolmen, The, 27. 
Science, 26. 

Physical, 132. 

Mathematical, 155. 

Inductive, 155. 
Sciences of the unconditioned, 155. 
Scientific men, 

their usual idea on causation, 9. 

on partial causes, 137. 

prefer the term * conditions ' to 
' causes/ 139. 
Secondary causes, 125. 
Simon, Dr. Collyns, 89. 
Space, 94. 

Spencer, Herbert, 79. 
Spirit, 52. 



210 INDhX. 

Stewart, Dugald, 26. 

his compromise, 38. 

on the divinity of causation, 42. 

mentioned, 47. 

Lewes on, 63. 

Extract from, 101. 

his opinions exhibited, 104. 
Subjective view of causation, vii. Set 

also Necessity, subjective. 
Succession, Causation as. See Hume. 
Suction, 147, et scq. 
Sugar, experience of, 65 — 68. 
Sun, The rising of the, 63, 68, 74. 
Sweetness, 65, 66, 68. 
Syllogism, the, 

the conclusion of, 92. 

a petitio principii, 93. 

the axiom of, 122. 

illustrated, 130. 

compared to explanations in 
physical science, 132. 

the parts of, 141. 



INDEX. 21 i 



Synonyms, 

of cause, given by Hume, 34, 
whirlpool of, 119. 



T. 

Theism, 101. 

Thomson, Archbishop, viii., 19. 
Time, Participles of, 119. 
Torricelli, 148. 

his search for a middle term, 152. 
Tyndall, Professor, 19. 



U. 

Unconditionalness, 

of sequence, 74. 

of axioms, 123. 

of mathematics, 155. 
Unconditioned, The sciences of the, 155. 



212 INDEX. 

Uniformity of nature, 
Bain on, 63. 
Mill on, 173. 



V. 

Vacuum, 151. 

Vitality, 128, 148. 
Volition, 

Baden Powell on, 41. 

Will as the cause of, 149. 

phenomenon of, 179. 
Voluntary agency, 84. 



W. 

Watch, motions of a, 83. 
Watch-force, 128, 149. 
Whewell, 20. 

his reply to Hume, 36. 

Lewes on, 63. 



INDEX. 



213 



Whewell, continued — 

his opinions on causation, 103. 

on Kant, 108. 

his antithesis of ' necessary ' and 
6 contingent ' truth, 166. 
Will, 148. 

Words, confusion caused by, 114, 148. 
Wyld, Mr., 89. 



York, Archbishop of. See Thomson. 




By the same Author, 
(Second Edition.) 

Examination of Gillespie : (an 
Analytical Criticism of the 
Argument a Priori) . . . 2s. 



Provost & Co,, 36, Henrietta St., Covent Garden. 



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